Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Vain; useless; unprofitable.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Vain; useless; unprofitable.

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

  • adjective Useless.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Besides, the fruitless frustraneous vanity of such an essay; for bring all the force of rhetoric in the world, yet vice can never be praised into virtue: a rotten thing cannot be painted sound.

    Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. V. 1634-1716 1823

  • If we have not first wrought our minds to a settled dislike and a bitter disgust of sin as our mortal enemy, all our attempts against it will be faint and heartless, our mortifications treacherous, and our fastings frustraneous; much like David's sending an army against

    Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. VI. 1634-1716 1823

  • And if God gives not repenting grace, there will be an hard heart and a dry eye, maugre all the poor frustraneous endeavours of nature.

    Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. VI. 1634-1716 1823

  • No prince can tell what the discontents of ill subjects, the emulation of neighbour states or princes have been designing, endeavouring, and projecting against him: all which counsels, by a controlling power from above, have from time to time been made abortive and frustraneous.

    Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. II. 1634-1716 1823

  • And therefore, where ingratitude begins remarkably to shew itself, he surely judges most wisely, who takes the alarm betimes; and arguing the fountain from the stream, concludes that there is ill-nature at the bottom; and so reducing his judgment into practice, timely withdraws his frustraneous, baffled kindnesses, and sees the folly of endeavouring to stroke a tiger into a lamb, or to court an

    Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions. Vol. I. 1634-1716 1823

Comments

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  • Unprofitable and completely useless.

    May 14, 2008

  • In Botany, a more-or-less disused term to describe the complex compound inflorescences ("flowers") of certain species of the sunflower family whose (apetalous) disk flowers are hermaphrodites and the ray flowers ("petals") are neuter or imperfect. Thus, the chances of self-fertilization within the flowers of a single plant are diminished. Sort of a "never-the-twain-shall-meet" arrangement.

    February 17, 2011

  • Since improv is extemporaneous

    The best are the quickest and zaniest.

    The slow and dull-witted

    Are wholly unfitted

    And they find the challenge frustraneous.

    January 11, 2017