Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having no useful result; ineffectual.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Frivolous; merely loquacious.
  • Of no effect; answering no valuable purpose; useless; ineffective; trifling: as, futile efforts; futile prattle.
  • Synonyms Trivial, frivolous, unimportant, useless, bootless, unavailing, profitless, vain, idle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Talkative; loquacious; tattling.
  • adjective Of no importance; answering no useful end; useless; vain; worthless.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Incapable of producing results; useless; not successful; not worth attempting.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective producing no result or effect
  • adjective unproductive of success

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin fūtilis; see gheu- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin fūtilis.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Trivial, useless, fruitless

    Comparison is futile.

    In a world where comparisons happen non-stop, it is difficult to look outside

    yourself and to ever be content with who you are. There's always someone who's a

    tad bit better.

    Source: for Make It Happen

    March 22, 2011

  • Confucious say, futile not enough to fix roof.

    March 22, 2011