worthless

[ wurth-lis ]

adjective

1. without worth; of no use, importance, or value; good-for-nothing:

   a worthless person; a worthless contract.

worthless

/ ˈwɜːθlɪs /

adjective

1. without practical value or usefulness
2. without merit; good-for-nothing

Derived Forms

• ˈworthlessness, noun
• ˈworthlessly, adverb

Other Words From

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of worthless¹

First recorded in 1580–90; worth ¹ + -less

Example Sentences

Miss the date, and that card becomes worthless to the customer.

From Fortune

It’s a remarkable milestone for a currency that’s been written off as worthless more times than I can count.

From Fortune

Like most quantitative measures, similarity scores are worthless without a decent sample size.

From FiveThirtyEight

His son told him that a voice inside was whispering how worthless he was, how he was hated by everyone.

From Washington Post

In fact, the actual game will be free to download from the Nintendo store, but is essentially worthless without a kart.

From TechCrunch

“Before they became something to be saved, they were just worthless,” she writes.

From The Daily Beast

He sold his worthless Current TV cable network to Al Jazeera for $500 million.

From The Daily Beast

After everything I'd gone through, leaving would have made it worthless.

From The Daily Beast

Except, of course, that green coffee is totally worthless as a weight loss supplement in the first place.

From The Daily Beast

Evidently determined to put his inquisitors in their place, he gave them a worthless answer.

From The Daily Beast

In other words, if one produces a large enough quantity of anything it becomes worthless.

From Project Gutenberg

A defective acknowledgment by a married woman is worthless, nor will any court compel her to make another one.

From Project Gutenberg

All of it was worthless—except to a man of vision—so, treading lightly, Scattergood went about acquiring what he needed.

From Project Gutenberg

They leave large holes which renders the leaf worthless for a cigar wrapper, leaving it fit only for fillers or seconds.

From Project Gutenberg

And he succeeded for the reason that his release was given without consideration and therefore was worthless.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• barren
• bogus
• futile
• inconsequential
• ineffective
• insignificant
• meaningless
• mediocre
• pointless
• unimportant
• unproductive
• unprofitable
• unusable
• useless