joylessness

Even production sources admit to being mystified by what they describe as the joylessness of the music.

That's another story, and Doubt limns the particular joylessness of Irish Catholicism.

They stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their eyes with a joylessness pitiful to see.

My mother, I believe, used to attribute in part to Fanny's early training her early joylessness.

The poverty, the utter joylessness of her solitary life, precluded the supposition.

A sense of utter joylessness fell on Napier, as for a few minutes longer he kept the pace at Julian's heels.

Here in England I have come face to face with destitution; with hunger, labour, sweat, and barren joylessness.