English

Noun

sunlessness ‎(uncountable)

1. The state or characteristic of being without the sun or sunshine.
   • 1999, Tim Radford, "Light and shade," Guardian (UK), 7 Aug. (retrieved 3 Aug. 2009):

     In Penzance and Falmouth, the total eclipse will last for 2 minutes 2 seconds. The longest period of sunlessness will be in Romania, at 2 mins 23 seconds.

2. (figuratively) Dreariness, joylessness.
   • 1882, George MacDonald, Weighed and Wanting, ch. 7:

     The honor she paid the honesty of these women helped her much to pity the sunlessness of their existence, and the poor end for which they lived.

   • 1986, Terrence Anthony Whalen, Philip Larkin and English Poetry, UBC Press, ISBN 9780774802321, p. 116:

     Given such an aware sensibility, they move, it seems to me, marginally past the sunlessness of a great deal of the wasteland literature of this century, and past the literature of despair of our own day.