Dictionary

futility en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /fjuˈtɪləti/ (General-American)
• /fjuːˈtɪlɪti/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Latin fūtilitās (“worthlessness, futility”). By surface analysis, futile + -ity.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The quality of being futile or useless.
   • “Has my dad come?” he asked. “You can see he hasn’t,” said Mrs. Morel, cross with the futility of the question. 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter IV, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
   • His taking the bar exam for a third time was pure futility.
   • an exercise of futility
2. (countable, usually) Something, especially an act, that is futile.
   • 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. 2009 September 5, Robert Clark, “Exhibition preview: Goya: Fantasies, Follies And Disasters, Manchester”, in Guardian:
   • No 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? 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter XIII, Democracy”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker):
   • 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. 1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book I (The Romantic Egotist), page 171:
   • An excessive solicitude to shield those others from one's own trials and hardships, to preserve the exact quality of the revelation, for example, had been the fruitful cause of crippling errors, spiritual tyrannies, dogmatisms, dissensions, and futilities. 1917, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The Soul of a Bishop:
   • But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him, his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? 1803, Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson:
3. (uncountable, usually) Unimportance.
   • Her empty chatter, her futility, her childish coquetry and frivolity—such light wares could hardly be the whole substance of any woman’s being; […] 1879, Henry James, chapter XVII, in Confidence, London: Chatto & Windus:

Forms

Deriveds

futilitarian · exercise in futility

Translations (27)

sv fruktlöshet (quality of being futile) · de Vergeblichkeit (quality of being futile) · it futilità (quality of being futile) · ca futilesa (quality of being futile) · bg безполе́зност (quality of being futile) · cs marnost (quality of being futile) · fr futilité (quality of being futile) · de Sinnlosigkeit (quality of being futile) · mk беспо́лезност (quality of being futile) · es futilidad (quality of being futile) · fi turhanpäiväisyys (quality of being futile) · oc futilitat (quality of being futile) · sv värdelöshet (quality of being futile) · et asjatus (quality of being futile) · gl futilidade (quality of being futile) · ca futilitat (quality of being futile) · pt futilidade (quality of being futile) · fi hyödyttömyys (quality of being futile) · ru тще́тность (quality of being futile) · mk за́лудност (quality of being futile) · fi turhuus (quality of being futile) · de Zwecklosigkeit (quality of being futile) · pl daremność (quality of being futile) · grc ματαιότης (quality of being futile) · ru бесполе́зность (quality of being futile) · cs zbytečnost (quality of being futile) · sv meningslöshet (quality of being futile)