Search the Dictionary

Profitable; useful. [Obs.]

Destitute of beauty. Hammond.

Talkative; loquacious; tattling. [Obs.] Talkers and futile persons. Bacon.

In a futile manner.

Useless; unprofitable. [Obs.] Bacon.

A mineral usually of a reddish brown color, and brilliant metallic adamantine luster, occurring in tetragonal crystals. In composition it is titanium dioxide, like octahedrite and brooklite.

Done by stitching. [R.] Boswell.

A mineral consisting of titanic oxide, and hence identical with rutile and octahedrite in composition, but crystallizing in the orthorhombic system.

A tree (Galactodendron utile or Brosimum Galactodendron) of South America, which yields, on incision, a nourishing fluid, resembling milk.

A crystal of one species inclosed within one of another, as one of rutile inclosed in quartz.

Futile; trifling. [Obs.]

Not effective; ineffectual; futile; inefficient; useless; as, an ineffective appeal. The word of God, without the spirit, [is] a dead and ineffective letter. Jer. Taylor.

Not producing the proper effect; without effect; inefficient; weak; useless; futile; unavailing; as, an ineffectual attempt; an ineffectual expedient. Pope. The peony root has been much commended, . . . and yet has been by many found ineffectual. Boyle.

Having no weight or effect; answering no purpose; unimportant; valueless; futile. Laws must be insignificant without the sanction of rewards and punishments. Bp. Wilkins.

The mahogany-like wood of the South African tree Pteroxylon utile, the sawdust of which causes violent sneezing (whence the name). Also called sneezewood.

A ferruginous variety of rutile.

Trifling; vain; futile; insignificant.

To render trifling or futile; to make silly. [R.] Coleridge.

Act of piffling; trifling talk or action; piddling; twaddle. [Dial. or Slang] "Futile piffle." Kipling.

Acicular rutile occurring in reticulated forms imbedded in quartz.