useless

[ yoos-lis ]

adjective

1. of no use; not serving the purpose or any purpose; unavailing or futile:

   It is useless to reason with him.

   Synonyms: profitless, inutile, worthless, valueless, fruitless

   Antonyms: effective

2. without useful qualities; of no practical good:

   a useless person; a useless gadget.

   Synonyms: unusable, unserviceable

useless

/ ˈjuːslɪs /

adjective

1. having no practical use or advantage
2. informal.
   ineffectual, weak, or stupid

   he's useless at history

Derived Forms

• ˈuselessness, noun
• ˈuselessly, adverb

Other Words From

• useless·ly adverb
• useless·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of useless¹

First recorded in 1585–95; use + -less

Synonym Study

Useless, futile, ineffectual, vain refer to that which is unavailing. That is useless which is unavailing because of the circumstances of the case or some inherent defect: It is useless to cry over spilt milk. Futile suggests wasted effort and complete failure to attain a desired end: All attempts were futile. That which is ineffectual weakly applies energy in an ill-advised way and does not produce a desired effect: an ineffectual effort. That which is vain is fruitless or hopeless even after all possible effort: It is vain to keep on hoping.

Example Sentences

A setup close to or including a bathroom or the kitchen would work well, but the latter is less essential considering you can store food in your chosen room and the appliances may be useless in a power outage anyway.

From Popular-Science

Traditional code-breaking methods appeared useless against the new technology.

From Washington Post

That could mean involving more companies like Amazon Web Services or Cloudflare, which can render websites and online applications useless by depriving them of the necessary infrastructure to operate.

From Washington Post

Governments also deliberately reduced internet bandwidths for more than 7,200 hours, bringing speeds down to 2G—SMS and voice calls continue to function but modern websites and apps are rendered useless.

From Quartz

“The implementation has ended up essentially being useless,” said Abercrombie, who went on to serve as the state’s governor, in a recent interview.

From ProPublica

Most people could agree on whether a given configuration of materials is a functioning vehicle or a useless set of parts.

From The Daily Beast

In another generation, it will be useless, leading visitors straight into a pillar.

From The Daily Beast

Effectively, dozens of brand new jets worth billions of dollars are sitting on the ground useless.

From The Daily Beast

But policies and cheap raw materials are useless if businesses fail to take advantage of them.

From The Daily Beast

“My insurance, even though I finally got it, was useless,” she said.

From The Daily Beast

Of course Edna would like to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play; but she feared it would be useless to entreat her.

From Project Gutenberg

When a leaf is so young that it wraps itself around the main stalk it's useless to try to turn it over.

From Project Gutenberg

At an early date we find, further, a perfectly useless kind of imitation which is more akin to that of art.

From Project Gutenberg

It would be useless to put you to the expense of drawings, until you have made up your minds on what you intend to have done.

From Project Gutenberg

You will do well to send a note to your amiable friend Carr; it may save him a useless journey; for at my table he shall not sit.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• counterproductive
• fruitless
• futile
• hopeless
• idle
• impractical
• incompetent
• ineffective
• ineffectual
• inoperative
• meaningless
• no good
• pointless
• stupid
• unproductive
• unworkable
• worthless