Futile Meaning
/ˈfjuː.taɪl/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjIncapable of producing results, useless; doomed not to be successful; not worth attempting.
adjInsignificant; frivolous.
Sentence Examples
It isn't futile to go to university.
Your efforts are futile.
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
After hours of trying, he realized his efforts were ____ because the door would not open.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All their efforts to restart the old engine proved to be ____, and they eventually gave up.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Middle French futile, from Latin fūtilis.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1874, Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
"He seemed hitherto to have been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection—to have been an echo, a shadow, a futile attempt;[…]"
— 1879, Henry James, chapter XXI, in Confidence, London: Chatto & Windus:
"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."
— 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:
"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."
— 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:
"He wished he had not been saddled with Whippham's rather futile son as his chaplain."
— 1917, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The Soul of a Bishop:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After hours of trying, he realized his efforts were ____ because the door would not open.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
All their efforts to restart the old engine proved to be ____, and they eventually gave up.