unavailing
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unavailing
Explanation
Something that's unavailing doesn't achieve the desired results. After an unavailing search for a pair of matching socks, you were forced to wear a blue and green striped sock on one foot and a pink polka-dotted sock on the other. When your efforts are ineffective, they're unavailing. A teacher's unavailing attempt to keep your class quiet means that the noise continues, and an underdog basketball team's unavailing struggle to make up the ten-point lag at halftime means they ultimately lose the game. This adjective comes from the now-obsolete availing, "advantageous," combined with the prefix un-, "not."
Vocabulary lists containing unavailing
Beowulf
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The Souls of Black Folk
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How the Other Half Lives
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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.
As part of their unavailing effort, the judges quoted a 1940 speech then-U.S.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 27, 2025
That memo also includes an analysis of why, in the authors’ views, those defenses are generally unavailing with respect to criminal charges.
From Slate • Jul. 20, 2023
Repeated attempts to reach the church and its pastor, Jared Lett, were unavailing.
From Washington Times • Dec. 23, 2021
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey described the tense scene as top White House aides arrived at Ashcroft’s room in an unavailing effort to secure his signature.
From Washington Post • Jun. 12, 2017
I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! unavailing till too late.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
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.
