futility

Etymology

It is borrowed from French futilité and directly borrowed from Latin fūtilitās (“worthlessness, emptiness, vanity”),^[2][3][4][5] from fūtilis (“vain, worthless”), also spelled futtilis,^[2][3] with the suffix that gives English -ity.^[2][5][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Dictionary.com give only the Latin source,^[6][7] Johnson and Klein only the French.^[8][5] The Latin adjective meant literally "pouring out easily, easily emptied", hence "leaky, unreliable", and was used as a noun for a water vessel broad at the top and pointed at the bottom;^[3][2] Klein relates it to fūtis (“pitcher”).^[5] It is usually derived from the stem of fundō (“to pour”),^[2][3] from a nasalised form of Proto-Indo-European *gheu- (“to pour”).^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The quality of being futile, triflingness, lack of weight, and especially ineffectiveness: 1623, in Henry Cockeram's English Dictionarie.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to about 1623,^[6] Etymonline to the 1620s^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1615–25.^[7]

Semantic evolution

From 1640 to 1692 the word could also mean talkativeness, the inability to hold one's tongue, a sense taken from the literal "leaky" meaning of the Latin adjective, as with futile "loquacious".^[2] Johnson (1755) still gave "talkativeness; loquacity" as the first sense, quoting L'Estrange, and "triflingness; want of weight; want of solidity" as the second, quoting Bentley.^[8] The idea of frivolousness, a disposition to trifle, appears in 1692 in Bentley's Boyle Lectures,^[2] and futility for a futile thing or act from 1667.^[2] Etymonline notes the jocular futilitarian, noun and adjective, from 1827.^[3] The phrase an exercise in futility is quoted by the Shorter Oxford from the New York Times.^[4]

Timeline

• 1623 – the quality of being futile; triflingness, ineffectiveness.^[2][6]
• 1640 – talkativeness, loquacity (obsolete by 1692).^[2]
• 1667 – something futile.^[2]
• 1692 – frivolousness, lack of serious purpose.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality of being futile; uselessness or lack of effect: She soon saw the futility of arguing with the umpire.^[10][6][2]
2. Lack of purpose or meaning; frivolity.^[10][6][2]
3. A futile act or thing; a useless gesture.^[10][6][2]
4. (obsolete, 1640–1692) Talkativeness, loquacity.^[2][8]

Word family

• futilitarian

Related words

• futile
• fuse
• fusion
• effusive

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 p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ 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.
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins