useless
/'ju:slis/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Having no beneficial use or incapable of functioning usefully: Describes something that serves no practical purpose or fails to work effectively.
- Ineffective or incompetent: Describes a person who is unable to perform a task adequately or provide help.
Usage and Examples
- Describing an object or effort:
- The broken tool is completely useless.
- Making a plan without the necessary data is a useless exercise.
- Describing a person's ability:
- He felt useless when he couldn't fix the problem.
- I'm useless at remembering names.
Advanced Usage
- "to be useless at (something)": to be very unskilled or ineffective in a particular area.
- She admits she's useless at cooking.
- "to feel useless": to feel incapable of helping or achieving anything.
- After the injury, he felt useless and frustrated.
Variants and Related Words
- Uselessly (adverb): in a useless manner.
- He struggled uselessly against the ropes.
- Uselessness (noun): the state or quality of being useless.
- The utter uselessness of the old machinery was obvious.
Synonyms
- Futile: incapable of producing any useful result; pointless.
- Ineffective: not producing any significant or desired effect.
- Worthless: having no real value or use.
- Incompetent: not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.
Antonyms
- Useful: able to be used for a practical purpose.
- Effective: successful in producing a desired or intended result.
- Competent: having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully.
Idioms and Phrases
- As useless as a chocolate teapot: (British, informal) completely useless.
- That advice was as useless as a chocolate teapot.
- To come to a useless end: to result in failure or no useful outcome.
- All their hard work came to a useless end when the project was canceled.
Adjective
- having no beneficial use or incapable of functioning usefully
- a kitchen full of useless gadgets
- she is useless in an emergency