fruitless

Etymology

It is formed from English fruit + -less,^[2][3][4][5] in the Middle English period.^[4][6] Fruit is from Old French fruit, from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment, produce, fruit”), from the base of fruor (“to use, enjoy”),^[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *bhrug- (“to enjoy”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Yielding no profit or result; useless, empty: 1340, in Rolle's Pricke of Conscience.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense is the older on record.^[2][3] The literal sense, not bearing fruit, appears in Lydgate, perhaps before 1439, who speaks of "frutles treen", dried to the root;^[8] that is earlier than the OED's first quotation, from Bradshaw before 1513, and Etymonline's 1510s.^[2][3] It could also mean childless: Johnson (1755) gave "without offspring" as his third sense, quoting the "fruitless crown" in Macbeth,^[9] a use the OED and the Shorter Oxford mark as obsolete or rare.^[2][5] His second sense was "vain; productive of no advantage".^[9] From 1843, in Carlyle, the word was used of people who fail to reach their object.^[2] The Shorter Oxford also records a poetic use as an adverb, from the mid 18th century, in T. Gray's "I fruitless mourn".^[5]

Timeline

• 1340 – yielding no profit or result; useless, vain.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to the mid 14th century.^[3]
• before 1439 (perhaps) – not producing fruit, in Lydgate.^[8] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from before 1513.^[2]
• mid 18th century – adverb, fruitlessly, in poetry.^[5]
• 1843 – of a person, not attaining an object; unsuccessful, in Carlyle.^[2]
• 1869 – unable to produce words, in Lowell (rare).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Producing no good result; futile, unsuccessful: Three days of fruitless talks ended without a deal.^[10][4][2]
2. Not bearing fruit; barren: a fruitless pear tree.^[4][10][2]
3. Of a person, not reaching one's aim.^[2]
4. (obsolete) Not producing offspring.^[5][9][2]

Word family

• fruitlessly
• fruitlessness

Related words

• fruit
• fruitful

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins