meaningless

[ mee-ning-lis ]
See synonyms for: meaninglessmeaninglessness on Thesaurus.com

adjective
  1. without meaning, significance, purpose, or value; purposeless; insignificant: a meaningless reply; a meaningless existence.

Origin of meaningless

1
First recorded in 1790–1800; meaning + -less

Other words from meaningless

  • mean·ing·less·ly, adverb
  • mean·ing·less·ness, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use meaningless in a sentence

  • We scream at how senseless the violence seems, how meaninglessness the tragedy.

  • It was the meaninglessness that seemed to leap out upon me wherever I turned my eyes.

    The Blue Germ | Martin Swayne
  • The commonness, the triviality, the immediate meaninglessness of it all drove her to frenzy.

    The Rainbow | D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
  • Leilah heard what to her was the meaninglessness of technical terms.

    The Monster | Edgar Saltus
  • Jarl Eleven's aside, with its many terms he could not understand, had been frightening in its very meaninglessness.

    The Thing in the Attic | James Benjamin Blish
  • This trick of repetition reaches the climax of meaninglessness in "The Ways of the Hour."

    James Fenimore Cooper | Thomas R. Lounsbury

British Dictionary definitions for meaningless

meaningless

/ (ˈmiːnɪŋlɪs) /


adjective
  1. futile or empty of meaning

Derived forms of meaningless

  • meaninglessly, adverb
  • meaninglessness, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012