Meaning of pointless in English

pointless

adjective

/ˈpɔɪnt.ləs/ us

/ˈpɔɪnt.ləs/

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Something that is pointless has no purpose, and it is a waste of time doing it:

pointless exercise This is a pointless exercise.

It seemed pointless to continue.

it is pointless informal It's pointless arguing with him.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

useless

uselessWe have cleared out carloads of useless junk.
no useMoney is no use if it's just sitting there.
serve no purposeSuch warnings serve no purpose other than to scare the public.
pointlessShe sees cleaning as a pointless exercise since everything is going to get dirty again.
worthlessThe majority of objects in the exhibition are worthless junk.

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SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Useless and futile

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Related words

pointlessly

pointlessness

(Definition of pointless from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

pointless | American Dictionary

pointless

adjective

/ˈpɔɪnt·ləs/

Add to word list Add to word list

having no useful purpose:

a pointless argument

The trip seemed pointless.

(Definition of pointless from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of pointless

pointless

Investigators can safely assume that players' efforts to influence their opponents are pointless.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Otherwise, including a nonlinear time trend in the cointegrating relations seems rather pointless.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This was a dispute that was as bitter as it was pointless, because ultimately insoluble.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Those who suffered but saw the war as pointless were subject to considerable psychic dissonance, and were prone to later psychic breakdown.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The old divisions between denominations seemed pointless to many.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If, then, nature makes nothing incomplete or pointless, it is necessar y that nature has made them all for the sake of men.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

At a methodological level one gets the impression that there's been a huge amount of rather pointless work here.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It is pointless to continue these accusations and counter-accusations.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Image-enhancement activities are pointless if they are not prominently conveyed to the voters.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Others suggested that strict management of an older patient's lifestyle was pointless.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In itself, the physicists' reaction does not mean that looking for a postmodern physics is pointless or ill-conceived.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Schlageter's life had thus been pointless, his death in vain.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

I also think that it is pointless to have endnotes in a book this long.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

He thought it pointless to do so unless one had some idea as to how to proceed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This often renders 'planning' a pointless exercise, but places a high value on 'perfor mance', or -exibility and improvization.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

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