unfruitful
/'ʌn'fru:tful/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Not producing good or useful results; not successful or productive: The primary meaning describes efforts, activities, or situations that fail to yield the desired or beneficial outcomes.
- Not bearing fruit, crops, or offspring; barren: This literal meaning applies to plants, trees, land, or animals that do not produce fruit or progeny.
Examples of Usage
- Adjective:
- The negotiations proved to be unfruitful, and no agreement was reached.
- After an unfruitful search, they returned home empty-handed.
- The unfruitful soil could not support any crops.
- Years of unfruitful research left the team feeling discouraged.
Advanced Usage
- "To prove unfruitful": to end without success or a positive result.
- All attempts at mediation proved unfruitful.
- "Unfruitful efforts/discussions/attempts": a common collocation describing actions that do not lead to success.
- The committee's unfruitful discussions delayed the project.
Variants and Related Words
- Fruitful (adj): The direct antonym, meaning productive or yielding good results.
- A fruitful collaboration.
- Fruitfulness (n): The state or quality of being fruitful.
- Unfruitfulness (n): The state or quality of being unfruitful.
Synonyms
- Unproductive: Not producing or achieving significant amounts or results.
- Barren: Incapable of producing offspring or fruit; utterly unproductive.
- Futile: Incapable of producing any useful result; pointless.
- Vain: Producing no result; useless.
- Sterile: Not able to produce children, young, crops, or fruit.
Antonyms
- Fruitful
- Productive
- Fertile
- Successful
- Profitable
Related Phrases
- To bear no fruit: An idiomatic expression similar in meaning to 'prove unfruitful'.
- His investments bore no fruit.
- To fall on barren ground: An idiom meaning (of ideas, suggestions) to be ignored or to have no effect.
- Their proposals fell on barren ground.
Adjective
- not fruitful; not conducive to abundant production