Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Useless   /jˈusləs/   Listen
adjective
Useless  adj.  Having, or being of, no use; unserviceable; producing no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual; as, a useless garment; useless pity. "Not to sit idle with so great a gift Useless, and thence ridiculous."
Synonyms: Fruitless; ineffectual. Useless, Fruitless, Ineffectual. We speak of an attempt, effort, etc., as being useless when there are in it inherent difficulties which forbid the hope of success, as fruitless when it fails, not from any such difficulties, but from some unexpected hindrance arising to frustrate it; as, the design was rendered fruitless by the death of its projector. Ineffectual nearly resembles fruitless, but implies a failure of a less hopeless character; as, after several ineffectual efforts, I at last succeeded. "Useless are all words Till you have writ "performance" with your swords. The other is for waiving." "Waiving all searches into antiquity, in relation to this controversy, as being either needless or fruitless." "Even our blessed Savior's preaching, who spake as never man spake, was ineffectual to many."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Useless" Quotes from Famous Books



... proper and convenient utensils and materials, the difficulty of preparing cakes will be great, and in most instances a failure; involving disappointment, waste of time, and useless expense. Accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable; and therefore scales and weights, and a set of tin measures (at least from a quart down to a jill) are of the utmost importance. A large sieve for flour ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... windowless, six-by-eight rooms, always a cheap, dirty calico curtain dividing the three-foot parlor in front from the five-foot bedroom behind, the former cluttered with a van-load of useless junk, dirty blankets, decrepit furniture, glittering gewgaws, a black baby squirming naked in a basket of rags with an Episcopal prayerbook under its pillow—relic of the old demon-scaring superstitions of Voodoo worship. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... was, I suppose, pronounced unobjectionable by the higher authorities. Here, however, our mainstay and support, Mademoiselle Descuilles, interposed a very peculiar difficulty. She had very good-naturedly learned the part of Solyman, in the other piece, for us, and whether she resented the useless trouble she had had on that occasion, or disliked that of committing several hundred of Racine's majestic verses to memory, I know not; but she declared that she would only act the part of Pyrrhus, which we wished her to fill, if we would read it ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... home, such as he could make it for her, what a life for poor Maria, who had been used to go to court and to cards and balls and assemblies every night! If he could be but the overseer of the estates—oh, he would be an honest factor, and try and make up for his useless life and extravagance in these past days! Five thousand pounds, all his patrimony and the accumulations of his long minority squandered in six months! He a beggar, except for dear George's kindness, with nothing in life left ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... impossible, Sonia!" she cried. "It's absolutely useless telling you anything. I told you particularly to pack my leather writing-case in my bag with your own hand. I happen to open a drawer, and what do I see? ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org