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Synonyms

fool's errand

American  

noun

  1. a completely absurd, pointless, or useless errand.

fool's errand British  

noun

  1. a fruitless undertaking

"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
fool's errand Idioms  

  1. A fruitless mission or undertaking, as in Asking the bank for yet another loan was clearly a fool's errand. [c. 1700]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It’s a fool’s errand at this moment to guess where any of this turns out or which party ends up ahead in the remapping effort.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 6, 2026

Trying to assign an exact reason to Bitcoin’s collapse can be a fool’s errand, but one risk increasingly cited by short sellers is the rise of quantum computing, S3 said.

From Barron's • Feb. 10, 2026

Trying to explain journalistic ethics to a lifelong criminal was probably a fool’s errand, but I still tried.

From Slate • Dec. 1, 2025

Showing Kyziridis the inside and inviting him to have a crack is a fool's errand, but that's what they did and that's how they fell behind again.

From BBC • Oct. 26, 2025

Sometimes they are victims of professional narcissism and write as if the reader were interested in every blind alley, fool’s errand, and wild-goose chase they engaged in while exploring the topic.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.