useless

Etymology

It is formed from English use + -less,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and the OED compares useful.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

For which there is no present use, currently unused: 1592, in the Countess of Pembroke's translation of Garnier's Antonius.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1593,^[6] Etymonline to the 1590s^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1585–95.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, "not at present in use", is now rare.^[2] The main sense, of no service or profit, follows at once in 1593.^[2][6] By the 1640s the word had two further uses: with it and an infinitive, for "pointless", and of people.^[2] The OED's revision of 2011 thus takes the personal use back from Etymonline's 1660s to 1646.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defines the word as answering no purpose, quoting Gay's "Pensive reclines upon his useless oar".^[7] The personal use is now often informal, meaning simply incompetent.^[8][4]

Timeline

• 1592 – currently unused, out of use.^[2]
• 1593 – having no useful qualities, serving no purpose.^[2][6]
• 1644 – with it and an infinitive, futile.^[2]
• 1646 – of people, performing no worthwhile role; incompetent.^[2] Etymonline says the 1660s.^[3]
• 1812 – noun, the useless, unproductive people as a class.^[2]
• 1838 – noun, the useless, the useless part of something.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having no practical use; serving no purpose: The old printer was useless without its cable.^[8][6][2]
2. Futile or pointless, usually with it as subject: It was useless to argue with the umpire.^[2][4]
3. (informal) Of a person: weak, incompetent or inefficient: He's useless at chess.^[8][4][2]
4. (rare) Not at present in use.^[2]

Noun

1. the useless: people regarded as unproductive, as a class.^[2]
2. the useless: that which is useless; the useless part of something.^[2]

Word family

• uselessly
• uselessness

Related words

• use
• useful

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes it from near-synonyms: a thing is useless when circumstances or some defect make it unavailing, futile when effort is wasted and fails completely, ineffectual when energy is badly applied, and vain when it stays fruitless after all possible effort.^[5] In Perthshire, useless was a name for the plant also called crab's claw or lady's thumb, from a story that the Virgin Mary threw it away with the words "that's useless".^[9]

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 r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d 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 Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)