adjective
definition
Incapable of producing results; doomed not to be successful; not worth attempting.
Examples of futile in a Sentence
She sighed at the futile thoughts.
His efforts were worse than futile.
Several futile attempts have been made to draw conclusions as to the intelligence of various birds.
His negotiations with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he returned to New York.
He settled in England as a West India merchant, making another futile attempt to enter parliament.
Her gentle attempts to get Lisa to sit were futile.
She almost objected then realized it was futile.
Arguing with Allen was futile, so she simply hopped in the back seat and locked the door.
But few public documents prepared with so much care have proved so futile.
Attempts to clean the circuitry are usually futile.
On the 8th of April the duke marched thence to meet Charles, whose little army, exhausted with a futile night march, half-starving, and broken by desertion, was completely worsted at Culloden on the 16th of April 1746.
His remaining years were spent in futile plans to make Poland a hereditary monarchy, to weaken the power of the Saxon nobles, and to gain territory for his sons in various parts of Europe.
But Maria Theresa (1740-1780) was distinguished for her enmity to the Jews, and in 1744 made a futile attempt to secure their expulsion from Bohemia.
It was from Helvetius that he learnt that, men being universally and solely governed by self-love, the so-called moral judgments are really the common judgments of any society as to its common interests; that it is therefore futile on the one hand to propose any standard of virtue, except that of conduciveness to general happiness, and on the other hand useless merely to lecture men on duty and scold them for vice; that the moralist's proper function is rather to exhibit the coincidence of virtue with private happiness; that, accordingly, though nature has bound men's interests together in many ways, and education by developing sympathy and the habit of mutual help may much extend the connexion, still the most effective moralist is the legislator, who by acting on self-love through legal sanctions may mould human conduct as he chooses.
In 1680 Jean Picard, in his Voyage d'Uranibourg, stated, as a result of ten years' observations, that Polaris, or the Pole Star, exhibited variations in its position amounting to 40" annually; some astronomers endeavoured to explain this by parallax, but these attempts were futile, for the motion was at variance with that which parallax would occasion.
Thus, meagre and futile as the doctrine of Thales was, all the Greek schools, with the solitary exception of that of Pythagoras, took their origin from it.
Mehemet Ali began by deepening the canals of Lower Egypt by this amount, a gigantic and futile task; for as they had been laid out on no scientific principles, the deep channels became filled with mud during the first flood, and all the excavation had to be done over again, year after year.
Jefferson's peace policy - or, more correctly, Madison's peace policy - of commercial restrictions to coerce Great Britain and France he continued to follow until 1812, when he was forced to change these futile commercial weapons for a policy of war, which was very popular with the extreme French wing of his party.
All attempts to punish the offenders were futile.
But his efforts were futile.
On the eve of his departure he detected and quelled a plot as wild and futile as that of Oldcastle.
He then resided for a time in the house of a physician at Winchester; the physician did as little as the mineral waters; and, after a further trial of Bath, he once more returned to Putney, and made a last futile attempt to study at Westminster.
Gallatin never wasted time in futile complaints.
He soon abandoned Italy to his eldest son, Louis, and remained in his new kingdom, engaged in alternate quarrels and reconciliations with his brothers, and in futile efforts to defend his lands from the attacks of the Normans and the Saracens.
Further obstruction was manifestly futile, and the British authorities reluctantly instructed Captain Hobson, R.N., to make his way to northern New Zealand with a dormant commission of lieutenant-governor in his pocket and authority to annex the country to Australia by peaceful arrangement with the natives.
His anti-slavery work culminated in his appeal to President Lincoln, entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," in which he urged "that all attempts to put down the rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause" were preposterous and futile, and that "every hour of deference to slavery" was "an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union."
Efforts to console may be futile, though holding the child firmly and speaking with soothing words may facilitate the return to deep sleep.
Conversation with Dulce was futile.
If Giddon had any such plans, he would soon find they were futile.
A resolute shrug indicated his search was futile.
He lay staring at the ceiling for a time, attempting to push away the torment; it had gripped him so completely that resistance was futile.
Fretting about the future was futile.
It is thus futile to compare the absolute voltages met with at two stations, unless allowance can be made for the influence of the environment.
To start with the last before considering (a) and (b) would be futile.
The defection of Marshal Marmont and his soldiery on the 4th of April rendered further thoughts of resistance futile.
To seek its sources would be futile.
Such attempts to put a precise money value on immigration are futile.
The council of Ferrara and Florence was the culmination of a series of futile medieval attempts to reunite the Greek and Roman churches.
The use of chemical antidotes, such as iron salts, is futile, as the drug has escaped into the blood from the stomach long before they can be administered.
John Maxwell (c. 1590-1647), archbishop of Tuam, was a Scottish ecclesiastic who took a leading part in helping Archbishop Laud in his futile attempt to restore the liturgy in Scotland.
The Porte, after much futile temporizing, yielded to France.
No agitation for the development of national defences, no beating of drums to awaken the military spirit, no anti-foreign clamour or invasion panic, no parading of uniforms and futile clash of arms, are necessary to entice the groundling and the bumpkin into the service.
The great feudatories did not even respect the lives of the royal family, for Andrew was recalled from a futile attempt to reconquer Galicia (which really lay beyond the Hungarian sphere of influence), through the murder of his first wife Gertrude of Meran (September 24, 1213), by rebellious nobles jealous of the influence of her relatives.
The premature and futile character of these drastic and violent proceedings at Pisa was only too speedily evident.
Having also succeeded in detaching part of the Shammar under Shlosh, he told the `Anaza he no longer needed their help. In the futile attempt of the three parties to dislodge the `Anaza Shlosh lost his life; but with the help of the Zubeid the other two succeeded, and Sufug was now supreme "King of the Steppe," levying blackmail as he pleased.
After many futile attempts the Portuguese obtained possession of it in 1471, but it passed to Spain in 1580, returning again to the Portuguese in 1656.
In 1750, and again, it is thought, in 1754, he was in London, hatching futile plots and risking his safety for his hopeless cause, and even abjuring the Roman Catholic faith in order to further his political interests.
To those who hold that all intellectual exercise outside the sphere of religion is impious or that all intellectual exercise inside that sphere is futile, he must remain an enigma.
Meissen, which he claimed as a vacant fief of the Empire, and Thuringia, which he bought from the landgrave Albert II., seemed to offer a favorable field for this undertaking, and he spent a large part of his short reign in a futile attempt to carry out his plan.
In spite of the peace of 1389 the cities had again begun to form leagues for peace; but, having secured a certain amount of recognition in the south and west of Germany, the new king turned aside from the pressing problems of government and in 1401 made a futile attempt to reach Rome, an enterprise which covered him with ridicule.