Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an unfruitful manner; fruitlessly.

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

  • adverb In an unfruitful manner

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Alleyn had worked late and unfruitfully at the Yard in company with Inspector Fox.

    Killer Dolphin Marsh, Ngaio, 1895-1982 1966

  • Of the value of this latter qualification few can form an estimate who have not seen excellent and praiseworthy exertions so often wither unfruitfully for the lack alone of an adjunct so nearly indispensable.

    Woman's Work in the Civil War A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience Mary C. Vaughan

  • Here for over twelve months he rendered admirable, though to him monotonous, service; when, lo, suddenly the Boers doubled back upon their pursuers, and attempted not unsuccessfully though unfruitfully, a second invasion of Cape

    With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back Edward P. Lowry

  • After three years thus spent, by no means unfruitfully, though it was only by his prize poem of 'Timbuctoo' that he won public honours, he was called away from Cambridge by family troubles and returned to Somersby in February 1831.

    Victorian Worthies Sixteen Biographies George Henry Blore

  • And he was deeply conscious of the honor that had descended, however unfruitfully, upon his house.

    Rezánov 1906

  • During his labours he would murmur melodiously the hymns that he had heard sung in Church, and thus bearing God in mind, he was outwardly busied with his cooking, but inwardly at leisure to meditate of heavenly things, for he passed no time unfruitfully, nor for a moment neglected his spiritual exercises.

    The Founders of the New Devotion: Being the Lives of Gerard Groote, Florentius Radewin and Their Followers. 1379?-1471 1905

  • Rossetti's "vain virtues" are the virtues of the rain, falling unfruitfully.

    Essays Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell 1884

  • Rossetti's "vain virtues" are the virtues of the rain, falling unfruitfully.

    The Spirit of Place and Other Essays Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell 1884

  • It chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head.

    St. Ives, Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • If Poesy visit the length and breadth of a country after years unfruitfully dull, coming like a showery fertilizing wind after drought, the corners and the valley-hidings are visited too, and these perhaps she now visits first, as these sometimes she has visited only.

    A Dish of Orts : Chiefly Papers on the Imagination, and on Shakespeare George MacDonald 1864

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