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{%type%} Definitions

WordNet 3.0Copyright Princeton University
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Short "hint"

Hopeless or useless.

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Usage examples (33)
  • It is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer.
  • A futile effort
  • Cape Town after the union staged a go-slow following what it termed futile wage negotiations.
  • It will cost millions in marketing and promotion, or what I call a futile attempt and waste of shareholder equity.
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Tutoring comment
  • A serf in the Middle Ages would find it "futile" (not useful; ineffective) to rise up against a "feudal" (pertaining to the landowner structure in the Middle Ages) lord.
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