Dictionary

unavailing en · ADJ

Etymology

From un- + availing.

Meanings

1. Fruitless, futile, useless.
   • During the next ten years, efforts to secure support for extending the railway south of Hawick were unavailing. 1952 January, H. A. Vallance, “The Waverley Route”, in Railway Magazine, page 5:
   • The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties! 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, →OCLC, page 474:

Forms

Deriveds

unavailingly · unavailingness

Synonyms

futile

Translations (29)

it infruttuoso (fruitless, futile, useless) · it futile (fruitless, futile, useless) · sv resultatlös (fruitless, futile, useless) · et asjatu (fruitless, futile, useless) · fr inutile (fruitless, futile, useless) · fi tulokseton (fruitless, futile, useless) · sv fåfäng (fruitless, futile, useless) · gd dìomhain (fruitless, futile, useless) · sv fruktlös (fruitless, futile, useless) · fr infructueux (fruitless, futile, useless) · fi turha (fruitless, futile, useless) · fr vain (fruitless, futile, useless) · de vergeblich (fruitless, futile, useless) · es ocioso (fruitless, futile, useless) · es inútil (fruitless, futile, useless) · bg безрезултатен (fruitless, futile, useless) · es fútil (fruitless, futile, useless) · bg безполезен (fruitless, futile, useless) · de umsonst (fruitless, futile, useless) · uk ма́рний (fruitless, futile, useless) · de nutzlos (fruitless, futile, useless) · es infructuoso (fruitless, futile, useless) · grc ἄπρᾱκτος (fruitless, futile, useless) · fr futile (fruitless, futile, useless) · uk даре́мний (fruitless, futile, useless) · es inservible (fruitless, futile, useless) · de unbrauchbar (fruitless, futile, useless) · it inefficace (fruitless, futile, useless) · fi hyödytön (fruitless, futile, useless)