Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Producing no fruit.
- adj. Unproductive of success: a fruitless search. See Synonyms at futile.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not bearing fruit; destitute of fruit or offspring: as, a fruitless plant; a fruitless marriage.
- Productive of or attended by no advantage or good result; ineffective; useless; idle: as, a fruitless attempt; a, fruitless controversy.
- Synonyms Barren, unprofitable, profitless Ineffectual, Unavailing, etc. (see useless); vain, idle, abortive, bootless, futile.
Wiktionary
- adj. Useless; unproductive.
- adj. Bearing no fruit; barren.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Lacking, or not bearing, fruit; barren; destitute of offspring
- adj. Productive of no advantage or good effect; vain; idle; useless; unprofitable.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. unproductive of success
Etymologies
- fruit + -less (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The extent of the division became further apparent as a German member of the ECB, Jürgen Stark, bluntly urged governments from the bloc of euro-using nations to halt what he called the "fruitless" discussion over a private-sector role in a new Greek bailout.”
“Frustrated with what she describes as fruitless and repetitive interviews, Ms. Abbas resigned from her Guantanamo post in 2002, and returned to another sales job in California.”
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“The results confirm that a gene known as "fruitless" is a key factor underlying sexual differences in behavior.”
“Contentment must spring from the mind, and she who seeks happiness by changing anything but her own disposition, will waste her life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the things she wishes to remove.”
“Contentment must spring from the mind, and she who seeks happiness by changing anything but her own disposition, will waste her life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the things she wishes to remove.”
“This makes it possible to constantly move towards our goals and not get caught up in fruitless opportunity chasing.”
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“George spent another ten minutes in fruitless argument, but without success.”
“After establishing the precise location (or locations) of the mutation, researchers can determine the sequence of biochemical information in fruitless's genetic code — the order of thousands of units of the basic genetic components adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine.”
“Some gene mutations are lethal to flies; fruitless is not one of these, nor does it cause illness.”
“Job-creation programs, you see, were ideologically bad as far as he was concerned because they usually ended up in fruitless dig-a-hole-then-fill-a-hole schemes and only provided temporary jobs that did not lead to anything.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fruitless’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
-more or -less
Words ending with *more or *less, more or less. Many of theses terms also appear on the list The -less Said, which see.
schemaless, unless, useless, guileless, wireless, regardless, homeless, endless, nevertheless, countless, jobless, doubtless and 434 more...
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06-13 GRE list
churlish, unswear, abnegate, abjure, state, indemnification, adumbrated, reny, abash, recondite, rescission, esoteric and 260 more...
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1100 words you need to know
GRE words
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 288 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 1008 more...
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List 1
the list of vocabularies from 1100 words you need to know Barron's.
conceded, eminent, prognosticate, indiscriminate, voracious, replete, abound, badger, drudgery, interminable, perceive, tinge and 248 more...
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The -less Said...
hopeless, bootless, groundless, luckless, artless, feckless, hapless, joyless, useless, penniless, childless, peerless and 310 more...
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my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
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SAT Words Appearing More Than Once on...
A list of 166 words that have appeared more than once on official SAT exams. Based on Gruber's SAT Word Master list.
abolish, abridge, abstemious, accent, accented, accolade, acquiesce, affirmation, amass, ambivalence, ambivalent, ambulatory and 154 more...
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good words
words that are mostly fun to say or just lovely
undulate, voluptuous, whimsy, parse, dank, cerulean, peen, traipsing, listless, coup de grace, reconnoiter, mercurial and 499 more...
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Valse's Words
fastidious, fervent, bellicose, personification, onomatopoeia, burly, concomitant, tempura, serendipity, pecuniary, foment, chum and 418 more...
Tweets
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