| 释义 |
futility|fjuːˈtɪlɪtɪ|
[ad. F. futilité or L. fūti-, futtilitātem, f. futtilis: see futile and -ity.]
1. The quality of being futile; triflingness, want of weight or importance; esp. inadequacy to produce a result or bring about a required end, ineffectiveness, uselessness.
1623Cockeram, Futilitie, vanitie. 1654Whitlock Zootomia 477 Divine Poems..might well absolve Poetry of its objected Futility, and Levity. 1732Berkeley Alciphr. v. §19 Whatever futility there may be in their notions. 1777Priestley Disc. Philos. Necess. 204 Shew the futility of these replies, if you can. 1845McCulloch Taxation ii. vi. (1852) 253 We have already seen the futility of all attempts to assess taxes proportionally to real profits. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 117 The manifest futility and absurdity of the explanation. 1879M. Arnold Mixed Ess., Irish Cathol. 104 We should recognize the futility of contending against the most rooted of prejudices.
2. Disposition to trifle or be occupied with trifles, incapacity for serious affairs or interests, lack of purpose, frivolousness.
1692Bentley Boyle Lect. iii. 28 The same trifling futility appears in their xii Signs of the Zodiack. 1748Chesterfield Lett. (1792) II. clvi. 57 If they [diversions] are futile and frivolous, it is time worse than lost, for they will give you an habit of futility. 1758Johnson Idler No. 25 ⁋11 Leave foppery and futility to die of themselves. 1856Mrs. C. Clarke Shaks. Char. xx. (1863) 507 If they go wrong, it is from utter futility and incapacity to keep out of harm's way. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt II. xxiii. 128 The noisy futility that belongs to schismatics generally.
†3. Talkativeness, loquacity, inability to hold one's tongue. Cf. futile a. 3. Obs.
1640Watts tr. Bacon's Adv. Learn. viii. ii. 383 The Futility of vaine Persons, which easily utter, as well what may be spoken, as what should be secreted. 1692R. L'Estrange Fables ccccxxvii, This Fable does not strike so much at the Futility of Women in General, as at the Incontinent Levity of a Prying Inquisitive Humour.
4. Something that is futile.
1667Bp. S. Parker Free & Impart. Censure 100, I am sure that those Notions..were but grand and pompous Futilities. 1840Carlyle Heroes iii. (1841) 163 He was but a loud-sounding inanity and futility; at bottom, he was not at all. 1843― Past & Pr. i. i, His mouth full of loud futilities. 1870Lowell Study Wind. 222 A patchwork of second-hand memories is a laborious futility, hard to write and harder to read. 1871Morley Voltaire (1886) 8 To reduce the faith to a vague futility. |