useless
Americanadjective
-
of no use; not serving the purpose or any purpose; unavailing or futile.
It is useless to reason with him.
- Synonyms:
- inutile, worthless, valueless, profitless, fruitless
- Antonyms:
- effective
-
without useful qualities; of no practical good.
a useless person; a useless gadget.
- Synonyms:
- unusable, unserviceable
adjective
-
having no practical use or advantage
-
informal ineffectual, weak, or stupid
he's useless at history
Related Words
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.
Other Word Forms
- uselessly adverb
- uselessness noun
Etymology
Origin of useless
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.
But I knew it was useless to ask questions.
From Literature
I helped her up on the board to show all the watching eyes I wasn’t entirely useless.
From Literature
This is something far more daffy and useless: The brouhaha over unrequited affections between Seattle Mariners at the World Baseball Classic.
They bounced back from the 17th-century revolution, when the Lords was abolished by a law that declared it "useless and dangerous to the people of England".
From BBC
Choking off that waterway would mean that vessels could no longer access the Suez Canal via the Red Sea, effectively rendering one of the precious few ways of bypassing the Strait of Hormuz largely useless.
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.
