Search the Dictionary

Vain; ineffectual; useless; unprofitable; null; voil; nugatory; of no effect. "Our frustrate search." Shak.

In vain. [Obs.] Vicars.

To frustrate; to bring to naught; to annihilate. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To check by perplexing; to disconcert, frustrate, or defeat; to thwart. "A baffled purpose." De Quincey. A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all. South. Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations. Prescott. The mere intricacy of a quest…

To disappoint; to frustrate; to foil; to baffle; to as, to balk expectation. They shall not balk my entrance. Byron.

In manner to balk or frustrate.

To frustrate or disappoint; to deceive or defraud, by nonfulfillment of engagement; to leave in the lurch; to give the slip to; as, to bilk a creditor. Thackeray.

Hence: To destroy the happiness of; to ruin; to mar essentially; to frustrate; as, to blight one's prospects. Seared in heart and lone and blighted. Byron.

To act in opposition to; to hinder, defeat, or frustrate, by contrary agency or influence; as, to counteract the effect of medicines; to counteract good advice.

To frustrate or counteract by secret measures.

To oppose, as another plot, by plotting; to attempt to frustrate, as a stratagem, by stratagem. Every wile had proved abortive, every plot had been counterplotted. De Quinsey.

To break, as by throwing or by collision; to shatter; to crust; to frustrate; to ruin. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Ps. ii. 9. A brave vessel, . . . Dashed all to pieces. Shak. To perplex and dash Maturest counsels. Milton.

To render null and void, as a title; to frustrate, as hope; to deprive, as of an estate. He finds himself naturally to dread a superior Being that can defeat all his designs, and disappoint all his hopes. Tillotson. The escheators . . . defeated the right heir of his succession. Hallam. In one instance he defeated his…

To frustrate or disappoint. It deludes thy search. Dryden.

To frustrate; to fail; to hinder of result. His retiring foe Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow. Addison.

To break up and frustrate the plans of; to balk Well, go with me and be not so discomfited. Shak.

To frustrate; to beat; to ruin. [Low] To dish out.

To dissuade; to frustrate; as, to dispurpose plots. [R.] A. Brewer.

To render (an effort or attempt) vain or nugatory; to baffle; to outwit; to balk; to frustrate; to defeat. And by foiled. Dryden. Her long locks that foil the painter's power. Byron.

One who foils or frustrates. Johnson.