fool's errand

1. 1.

   a fruitless mission

   Broadermission

Questions about fool's errand

What does fool's errand mean?

fool's errand means "a fruitless mission".

Is fool's errand a common word?

fool's errand is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.