sparkless

spark +‎ -less

sparkless (not comparable)

1. without a spark
   • 1891, Shelley, Adonais‎:

     From the contagion of the world's slow stain 5 He is secure; and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain-- Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 41.

   • 1939, Arthur Quiller-Couch, On The Art of Reading‎:

     But when we come to a fine thing in our own language--to a stanza from Shelley's "Adonais" for instance: He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. what can you do with that?

   • 2007 January 28, Scott Sturgis, “A Mechanic’s Laptop Makes Manuals All but Obsolete”, in New York Times‎:

     The worn-out brushes in a dead starter or a short circuit in a sparkless ignition distributor would eventually be revealed to a mechanic who carefully dug through the clues.

2. lacking in creativity or energy
   • 1996 January 26, Neil Tesser, “Motion Poets”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     Live, though, this youthful Minnesota-based band performed a somewhat sparkless set that seemed to bury the conceptual strengths, the stark voicings, and the crisp rhythms that on the album helped shape the arrangements and link the horns.

   • 2004 July 23, Lawrence Bommer, “Much Ado About Nothing”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     It's a small triumph that LiveWire's sparkless production manages to preserve the plot.