Futility

Origin

futile + -ity

Full definition of futility

Noun

1. (uncountable) The quality of being futile or useless.His taking the bar exam for a third time was pure futility.
2. (countable) Something, especially an act, that is futile.
• 1803, Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson Chapter , But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him, his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains?
• 1843, Thomas_Carlyle, , book 3, chapter XIII, DemocracyNo man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shewn. … No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like?
• 1919, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise Chapter , But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads.
• 2009, September 5, Robert Clark, Exhibition preview: Goya: Fantasies, Follies And Disasters, Manchester, There are moments of profound existential angst, howls of despair at the absurd futilities of war and a sneering disgust at the soul-destroying wastage of human potential.
3. (uncountable) Unimportance.