Shirtless means bare-chested, said of a man with his top off. Shirtless in the heat, a shirtless jogger, working shirtless.
It is used almost entirely of men, and in Britain the shirtless man in a heatwave is a fixed comic figure. Some councils and shops post rules against it, which people notice only when the weather turns.
1adjectiveshirtlessBare-chested, said of a man who has stripped off his top in the heat or for a workout.
“On the hottest day of the year, the builders worked shirtless in the sun.”
shirtless is a state.
Middle English
schirte
English
shirt
English, today
shirtless
Built from
From shirt + -less. shirt comes from Middle English schirte. From Middle English schirt, schirte, schuirte, schyrtte, seorte, shearte, shert, shirt, sseorte, from Old English sċyrte (“a short garment; skirt; kirtle”), from Proto-West Germanic skurtijā, from Proto-Germanic skurtijǭ (“a short garment, skirt, apron”), from skurtaz (“short”), from skertaną (“to cut off”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)ker- (“to cut off; to divide”). a doublet of skirt. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA