Wiktionary

futile

English

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Etymology

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From Middle French futile, from Latin fūtilis. Related with god through Indo-European.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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futile (comparative more futile, superlative most futile)

  1. Incapable of producing results, useless; doomed not to be successful; not worth attempting.
    • 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
      But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely confined to the times when Troy’s neglect was more than ordinarily evident.
    • 1879, Henry James, chapter XXI, in Confidence, London: Chatto & Windus:
      He seemed hitherto to have been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection—to have been an echo, a shadow, a futile attempt; […]
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46:
      No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.
    • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:
      There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. […] Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place.
    • 1917, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The Soul of a Bishop‎[1]:
      He wished he had not been saddled with Whippham's rather futile son as his chaplain.
    • 2011 December 15, Marc Higginson, “Shamrock Rovers 0-4 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport:
      Goals from Steven Pienaar, Andros Townsend, Jermain Defoe and Harry Kane sealed the win, but Rubin Kazan's 1-1 draw against PAOK Salonika rendered Spurs' efforts futile.
  2. Insignificant; frivolous.

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Translations

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French

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin fūtilis.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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futile (plural futiles)

  1. futile
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Further reading

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Italian

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Etymology

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From Latin fūtilis (“futile, worthless”, literally “that easily pours out”).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈfu.ti.le/
  • Rhymes: -utile
  • Hyphenation: fù‧ti‧le

Adjective

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futile (plural futili)

  1. futile, frivolous, worthless

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • futile in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

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Latin

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Etymology 1

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Alternative forms

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Adverb

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fūtile (not comparable)

  1. in vain
Synonyms
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Etymology 2

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Adjective

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fūtile

  1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of fūtilis

References

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  • “futile”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “futile”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • futile in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
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