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say it: FYOO-tuhl
futile is an adjective meaning "producing no result or effect". It carries 2 recorded senses.
producing no result or effect
“a futile effort”
“the therapy was ineffectual”
“an otiose undertaking”
“an unavailing attempt”
unproductive of success
“a fruitless search”
“futile years after her artistic peak”
“a sleeveless errand”
“a vain attempt”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for futile come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.