futile
/ˈfju.taɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.39 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Incapable of producing results, useless; doomed not to be successful; not worth attempting.
adj
Example Sentences
- "But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely confined to the times when Troy’s neglect was more than ordinarily evident."
- "He seemed hitherto to have been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection—to have been an echo, a shadow, a futile attempt;[…]"
- "No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or[…]. And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness."
- "There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.[…]Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place."
- "He wished he had not been saddled with Whippham's rather futile son as his chaplain."
- "Goals from Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend, Jermain Defoe and Harry Kane sealed the win, but Rubin Kazan's 1-1 draw against PAOK Salonika rendered Spurs' efforts futile."
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French futile, from Latin fūtilis.
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵʰew-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfju.taɪl/
- British English: /ˈfjuː.taɪl/
Inflected Forms
more futile (comparative)
most futile (superlative)