Futility
Contents
English
Noun
Futility (usually uncountable; plural futilities)- (uncountable) The quality of being futile or useless.
- His taking the bar exam for a third time was pure futility.
- (countable) Something, especially an act, that is futile.
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 3, chapter XIII, Democracy
- No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shewn. […] No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like?
- 2009 Robert Clark Exhibition preview: Goya: Fantasies, Follies And Disasters, Manchester
- There are moments of profound existential angst, howls of despair at the absurd futilities of war and a sneering disgust at the soul-destroying wastage of human potential.
- (uncountable) Unimportance.
Adjectives for Futility
clumsy; apparent; sweet; fantastic; magnificent; obvious; patent; accepted.
Verbs for Futility
battle with—; bemoan — of; break in—; contend with—; curse—; dispose of—; evade—; fritter into—; lapse into—; lose in —; manifest—; object to—; recognize—; reduce to—; result in—; screen—; strike a —; while away in—; —appears; —confronts; —conquers; —dies.
Thesaurus
absurdity, aimlessness, bankruptcy, big deal, blank future, bleak outlook, bootlessness, counterproductiveness, counterproductivity, dead letter, defeat, emptiness, empty sound, failure, fatuity, fecklessness, flimsiness, foolishness, frivolity, frivolousness, fruitlessness, hollowness, hopelessness, idleness, ill success, impoliticalness, impoliticness, impossibility, impotence, inadvisability, inanity, inappropriateness, inaptitude, incongruity, inconvenience, inconveniency, ineffectiveness, ineffectuality, ineffectualness, inefficaciousness, inefficacy, ineptitude, inexpectation, inexpedience, inexpediency, infelicity, inopportuneness, insignificance, invalidity, levity, lightness, losing game, meaninglessness, mere noise, no go, no hope, noise, nonaccomplishment, nonsensicality, nonsuccess, not a prayer, nugacity, nullity, otiosity, phatic communion, pointlessness, profitlessness, purposelessness, rat race, senselessness, shallowness, silliness, slenderness, slightness, small hope, successlessness, superficiality, the absurd, triflingness, triteness, triviality, trivialness, undesirability, unfitness, unfittingness, unfortunateness, unhopefulness, unmeaningness, unmeetness, unproductiveness, unprofitability, unprofitableness, unseasonableness, unseemliness, unsignificancy, unsuccess, unsuccessfulness, unsuitability, untimeliness, unwiseness, uselessness, vacuity, valuelessness, vanity, vapidity, vicious circle, worthlessness, wrongness
Etymology
futile
Translations
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