Word Finder - ineffectual

definition

Unable or insufficient to produce effect.

synonyms

• futile

definition

Worthless.

definition

Weak, indecisive; lacking forcefulness.

example

Our group leader proved highly ineffectual, caving to every whim put forth by the other members.

This battle ended a long series of ineffectual operations.

Her kicks were ineffectual against the guardsman's chainmail, and his sword plunged into her chest.

It needed a second insult - the firing on " La Provence," a vessel carrying a flag of truce, in the harbour of Algiers (August 3, 1829) - to spur the French government to further action than an ineffectual blockade.

Far from submitting to the papal breve, the ex-Jesuits, after some ineffectual attempts at direct resistance, withdrew into the territories of the free-thinking sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, Frederick II.

Hood proved ineffectual; and on the 1st of September Atlanta was taken.

The most remarkable military events of this period were (1) the siege and destruction of the oasis of Zaatcha, where the inhabitants, displeased by an alteration in the tax on palms, rose at the voice of a fanatic named Bu-Zian; (2) the ineffectual campaign of Marshal Saint Arnaud in Little Kabylia, where the tribes rose at the instigation of Bu-Magla (" the mule man ") in 1851.

In the first, after an ineffectual attempt by Nepal, he travelled by the Manasarowar Lake, and the road thence eastward, parallel to the course of the Tsangpo, reaching Lhasa on the 10th of January 1866, and leaving it on the 21st of April 1867.

Matthew Paris said that he had a heart of wax; Dante relegated him to the limbo of ineffectual souls; and later generations have endorsed these scathing judgments.

The efforts made from time to time by vigorous rulers to enforce the charges that remained legally due, proved quite ineffectual to restore the older fiscal system.

The Polish princes opposed a valiant but ineffectual resistance; the towns of Sandomir and Cracow were reduced to ashes, and all who were able fled to the mountains of Hungary or the forests of Moravia.

Under the common law of Scotland, a submission of future disputes or differences to an arbiter, or arbiters, unnamed, was ineffectual except where the agreement to refer did not contemplate the decision of proper disputes between the parties but the adjustment of some condition, or the liquidation of some obligation, contained in the contract of which the agreement to submit formed a part.

Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer and others urged him to submit in vain; confinement to his house by order of the Council proved equally ineffectual; and it was not until he had spent some weeks in the Fleet prison that the "father of nonconformity" consented to conform, and Hooper submitted to consecration with the legal ceremonies (March 8, 1551).

Offering an ineffectual resistance to the passage of the Syrian troops, Alexander was driven back by Aretas, king of Arabia, against whom they had marched.

Edward Dillon (Glass, 1902) has very properly laid stress on the importance of the enamelled Saracenic glass of the r3th, 14th and r 5th centuries, pointing out that, whereas the Romans and Byzantine Greeks made some crude and ineffectual experiments in enamelling, it was under Saracenic influence that the processes of enamelling and gilding on glass vessels were perfected.

Many ineffectual attempts have been made to connect the Watling street in the city with the great Roman road so named in medieval times.

In the case of treason, murder or rape a pardon is ineffectual unless the offence be particularly specified therein.

Alaric therefore cashiered his puppet emperor Attalus after eleven months of ineffectual rule, and once more tried to reopen negotiations with Honorius.

In his second term (1780-1781) the state was overrun by British expeditions, and Jefferson, a civilian, was blamed for the ineffectual resistance.

This report led to the passing of a number of acts which, proving ineffectual, were followed by the Factories and Shops Act of 1896, passed by the ministry of Mr (afterwards Sir Alexander) Peacock.

In 1169 he sent a joint expedition with King Amalric of Jerusalem to Egypt, which retired after an ineffectual attempt to capture Damietta.

Tancred now sought to win over the towns by extensive grants of privileges, and at Gravina (June 1192) was reco g nized by the pope, whose ineffectual support he gained by surrendering the royal legateship over Sicily.

The serfs were rigidly debarred from intermixture or social advancement, and were watched by their masters with a suspicion fully justified by recurrent ineffectual revolts.

Judged on his results, however, he is also utterly ineffectual.

His attack on the conduct of Governor Eyre in Jamaica was listened to, but with repugnance by the majority, although his action in this matter in and out of parliament was far from being ineffectual.

All attempts to enforce the British commercial regulations were ineffectual.

He was twice chosen bishop of Dunkeld, but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards primus, rendered the election on both occasions ineffectual.

He was sure, after his experiences at Baltimore, that a movement against slavery resting upon any less radical foundation than this would be ineffectual.

His endeavour, for instance, to put a stop to the slave raiding which devastated the Sudan provinces was wholly ineffectual.

A hurried campaign under the king's personal command was ineffectual.

In May 1 553 he went over to Calais as one of the English commissioners to promote peace with France; but their efforts were ineffectual.

His advice, however, was unpalatable and proved ineffectual.

Karim took refuge behind the walls of Shiraz, and all the efforts of the enemy to dislodge him were ineffectual.

These committees, while reducing the ministers to impotence, were themselves clumsy and ineffectual.

A vigorous but ineffectual warfare had already been waged against the blind traditions of the schools by Ramus and Telesius, by Patricius and Campanella, and the revolution which Galileo completed had been prepared by his predecessors.

An attempt to secure suitable lodgings nearer to Cambridge had been ineffectual.

He's an ineffectual, rather huffy man who lacks the patience to be a particularly good pastor.

Has now been adversely affected by internal politics & is largely ineffectual outside of the US.

From the outset, this system seems to have been rather ineffectual.

At first they engaged contractors, whose intervention proved completely ineffectual.

No wonder the battle to restore our sovereignty has been so ineffectual.

Furthermore, the penal clauses of the old Masters and Servants Act rendered the new rights ineffectual.

Any kind of direct involvement with the informal sector would prove ineffectual, or worse, harmful.

It will render ineffectual the means that should do them good.

The teachers often seemed largely ineffectual; they were there, but whether or not the kids noticed was another matter.

We can analyze the alternatives without the noise of public addressing systems or rallies or TV ads, which become ineffectual.

They empty the blood sacrifice of power, make ineffectual the death of the Savior and deny that our Lord actually saved anyone.

These vanes were four in number, but were found entirely ineffectual in moving the balloon, or in aiding its ascending power.

Robber barons became a law unto themselves and built unlicensed castles from which they terrorized the populace and against them Stephen was largely ineffectual.

I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more and more ineffectual.

Maximilian harboured the idea of driving the Turks from Europe; but his appeal to all Christian sovereigns was ineffectual.