Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being without aim or definite purpose.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or quality of being aimless, or without purpose or direction.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of lacking any definite purpose

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From aim + -less + -ness.

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Examples

  • "If it is the case that science prepares and diagnoses social developments at an early stage, then it is right to expect that the National Academy of the Sciences sets its own agenda for advising politics and society ­ at a time when neither politics nor public opinion have noticed specific developments." argue for the necessity of a three-pronged model for scientific institutions: universities, non-academic scientific societies and academies - and for the "aimlessness" of scientific research.

    Eurozine articles Eurozine Review 2010

  • More intriguing was the unease she detected, the aimlessness his hustling and exuberance did not disguise.

    O: A Presidential Novel Anonymous 2011

  • These units of meaning may not ultimately accumulate, but that's hardly the point; Amato forces his reader to acknowledge the fundamental falseness, absurdity, aimlessness, and finally emptiness of demotic linguistic conventions.

    Seth Abramson: December 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews Seth Abramson 2011

  • More intriguing was the unease she detected, the aimlessness his hustling and exuberance did not disguise.

    O: A Presidential Novel Anonymous 2011

  • These units of meaning may not ultimately accumulate, but that's hardly the point; Amato forces his reader to acknowledge the fundamental falseness, absurdity, aimlessness, and finally emptiness of demotic linguistic conventions.

    Seth Abramson: December 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews Seth Abramson 2011

  • Â With a whole new League around the corner, the few remaining members of the JLA have been dealing with a growing sense of unrest and aimlessness.

    Review: Justice League of America #38 | Major Spoilers - Comic Book Reviews and News 2009

  • It just gets overwhelmed by the sheer aimlessness of the production.

    Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat 2009

  • Woodrow and Aiden Tyler Dawson are childhood friends whose aimlessness in day-to-day life is matched only by their passion for building flame-spewing machinery to "prepare for the apocalypse."

    Farihah Zaman: SXSW 2011 Dispatch Two: Coming of Age to a Theater Near You Farihah Zaman 2011

  • The seeming aimlessness of the Wall Street protestors may reflect that they are raging against their own machine.

    Not All the Rage 2011

  • Woodrow and Aiden Tyler Dawson are childhood friends whose aimlessness in day-to-day life is matched only by their passion for building flame-spewing machinery to "prepare for the apocalypse."

    Farihah Zaman: SXSW 2011 Dispatch Two: Coming of Age to a Theater Near You Farihah Zaman 2011

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