from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Being or having no beneficial use; futile or ineffective.
- adj. Incapable of functioning or assisting; ineffectual: He panics easily and is useless in an emergency. See Synonyms at futile.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Without use or possibility to be used.
- adj. Unhelpful, not useful; pointless (of an action).
- adj. good-for-nothing; not dependable.
- adj. unable to do well at a particular task or thing. Useless is mildly insulting.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Having, or being of, no use; unserviceable; producing no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having no use; being of no use; unserviceable; usable to no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual.
- Synonyms Useless, Fruitless, Ineffectual, Unavailing, bootless, profitless, unprofitable, valueless, worthless, futile, abortive. Useless often implies that the cause of failure lies in the situation; as, it is useless to try to mend that clock. Useless is the only one of these words that may thus be applied by anticipation to what might be attempted. That which is fruitless, ineffectual, or unavailing actually fails, and from hindrances external to itself. Unavailing is more likely to be used the fruitless or ineffectual where the failure is through some one's unwillingness; as, unavailing prayers or petitions, ineffectual efforts, fruitless labors. Fruitless is stronger and more final than ineffectual or unavailing.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. having no beneficial use or incapable of functioning usefully
Sorry, no etymologies found.
My reasons for this will show why I consider the term useless and muddled.
The moderate-conservative GOP leader considers the term useless, viewing it as a fifth-wheel after-thought approach to expanding the party's base.
It's all laid out in that museum, in what you called useless junk.
On the floor of the long room was a large brasero in which the new librarian was burning up a quantity of what he described as useless and miscellaneous books, with a view to the rearrangement of the library.
Before a month had passed my mother was confessing a dread that the Professor might return and claim the child; she was pleading with my father to abandon what she called a useless and an expensive search.
On the floor of the long room was a large _brasero_ in which the new librarian was burning up a quantity of what he described as useless and miscellaneous books, with a view to the rearrangement of the library.
Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, young and old.
This is what you call useless when compared to Google (et al).
The ordinance limits the number of his messages on his business 'electric sign down to what he calls a useless rate, while others, including some in the city, keep rolling along.
Or "What do you call the useless flap of skin attached to a penis?"