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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
useless
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
as good as dead/ruined/useless etc
▪ This carpet’s as good as ruined.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ In the middle of the yard the little pony Alejandro regarded as useless stood quivering with terror.
▪ It was as useless as trying to get kidnapped in second grade.
▪ Trying to arrange a temporary nanny proved to be as useless as their hunt for an electrician.
▪ By contrast, most objects thrown away were by definition worn out, broken, or regarded as useless.
completely
▪ Yet it was completely useless, he said.
▪ I wonder how much money we taxpayers paid for these completely useless pieces of information.
▪ If hay has been rained on it may be completely useless.
pretty
▪ Some of them are pretty useless, but you do pick up a little information from each one.
▪ One is that the normal / abnormal dichotomy and the categories of mental illness are pretty useless.
▪ But it is pretty useless when it comes to toppling dodgy regimes.
▪ She even waved her fists, which was pretty useless as she's only nine and small for her age.
quite
▪ You will find that the normal aircraft compass is quite useless unless you are flying straight and at a steady speed.
▪ There are so many factors involved in what may seem the simplest of problems, that self-justify answers are often quite useless.
▪ Their digging has cleared right down to the gravel tidy - without it they would have rendered the undergravel filter quite useless.
▪ He went on, it's quite useless if I think of your feelings in any way at all.
▪ It was all quite useless, of course; she'd no idea where she was going.
▪ If you press rose petals too heavily they are quite useless, losing their colour and becoming transparent.
▪ The manufacturer who quickly and generously replaced the kit was able to identify it as three years old, and quite useless.
▪ A few other metal objects had been fired, such as clocks and hair brushes ... but they had proved quite useless.
totally
▪ Luckily they were totally useless in front of goal.
▪ But now I see he was totally useless to learn from.
▪ Soft defences would have been totally useless.
virtually
▪ The energy, once transferred to the bath is in the form of low grade heat and therefore virtually useless.
▪ These programs provide facilities ranging from the essential to the virtually useless depending on your point of view.
■ NOUN
information
▪ To this end there can be no such thing as useless information.
▪ This is, I feel, useless information.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
next to impossible/useless etc
▪ As a waterproof it was next to useless.
▪ But counting the dead is next to impossible.
▪ But he quickly learned that at his age it was next to impossible to find a professional job in San Francisco.
▪ Buying such a processor for less than $ 400 is next to impossible.
▪ Further, genuine educational change in these settings is next to impossible given the logistical difficulty of just getting the staff together.
▪ In the early months, this restraint was next to impossible for them to achieve.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a useless piece of information
▪ Antibiotics are useless against viral infections such as influenza.
▪ As a secretary, she was useless.
▪ He knew it was useless to pretend to be innocent.
▪ I had to remind myself that worrying is a useless activity.
▪ I tried calling the tax office but they were completely useless.
▪ It's useless trying to talk to you when you've had a drink.
▪ It's time you traded the car in, before it becomes utterly useless.
▪ It think it would be useless writing to the company -- they haven't even returned my calls.
▪ It was useless now to ask for help from my mother.
▪ Jay's car was 20 years old, and useless for anything but a short journey to the local shops.
▪ Jenny decided to say nothing. It was useless to argue.
▪ Numerous studies show that dieting is useless and may even cause weight gain.
▪ Of course we need to test children's ability, but some of these exams are worse than useless.
▪ Presumably, my files will be completely useless to whoever stole them.
▪ She gave me a video, but of course it's useless without a player.
▪ That's a nice watch, but it's useless for going underwater.
▪ The lifejackets turned out to be useless, because they didn't inflate properly.
▪ There's no point reading the instructions - they're completely useless.
▪ This book is useless! I can't find any of the information I need.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And even as she prayed and wished, she knew, deep inside, that it was all useless.
▪ Despite that military expenditure, there are many situations where the military is useless, says Edward Djerejian.
▪ Had I an opportunity I should have great pleasure in giving you a few hints on this subject which might not be useless.
▪ I feel useless, you know what I mean?
▪ I kept useless collections of stamps, seashells, postcards, rocks, delighting in their deadly neatness.
▪ If the nerve fails to pass on the correct signals, the limb becomes useless.
▪ When their job is done they are judged useless, and killed or thrown out.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Useless

Useless \Use"less\, a. Having, or being of, no use; unserviceable; producing no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual; as, a useless garment; useless pity.

Not to sit idle with so great a gift Useless, and thence ridiculous.
--Milton.

Syn: Fruitless; ineffectual.

Usage: Useless, Fruitless, Ineffectual. We speak of an attempt, effort, etc., as being useless when there are in it inherent difficulties which forbid the hope of success, as fruitless when it fails, not from any such difficulties, but from some unexpected hindrance arising to frustrate it; as, the design was rendered fruitless by the death of its projector. Ineffectual nearly resembles fruitless, but implies a failure of a less hopeless character; as, after several ineffectual efforts, I at last succeeded.

Useless are all words Till you have writ ``performance'' with your swords. The other is for waiving.
--Beau. & Fl.

Waiving all searches into antiquity, in relation to this controversy, as being either needless or fruitless.
--Waterland.

Even our blessed Savior's preaching, who spake as never man spake, was ineffectual to many.
--Bp. Stillingfleet. [1913 Webster] -- Use"less*ly, adv. -- Use"less*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
useless

1590s, from use (n.) + -less. Related: Uselessly; uselessness.

Wiktionary
useless

a. 1 Without use or possibility to be used. 2 unhelpful, not useful; pointless (of an action). 3 (context pejorative of a person English) good-for-nothing; not dependable. 4 (context colloquial of a person English) unable to do well at a particular task or thing. ''Useless'' is mildly insulting.

WordNet
useless
  1. adj. having no beneficial use or incapable of functioning usefully; "a kitchen full of useless gadgets"; "she is useless in an emergency" [ant: useful]

  2. not useful; "a curiously unhelpful and useless manual"

Wikipedia
Useless (song)

"Useless" is Depeche Mode's thirty-fourth UK single, released on 20 October 1997, and the fourth and final single for the album Ultra. It was released with " Home" as a double A-side in the US due to "Useless" getting airplay on US radio stations before "Home" was announced.

"Useless" is an industrial rock track in the vein of " Barrel of a Gun", with more of a pop twist. The single remix, by Alan Moulder, changes the intro and has an updated beat (similar to the changes done to the 7" versions of " Walking In My Shoes" and " Condemnation"), and adds some extra synth during the chorus. It also contains more grainy vocals. The "The Kruder + Dorfmeister Session" is a very prominent remix by the DJ duo of the same name. On the US single, the single remix is replaced by the CJ Bolland Ultrasonar Edit.

There are no actual B-sides for "Useless", except for remixes and live versions of the song. Some versions of the CD single feature the videos for " Barrel of a Gun" and " It's No Good", accessible when the disc is inserted into a PC.

The 1997 music video for "Useless" was the last Depeche Mode video to be directed by Anton Corbijn for more than eight years. Though he still did some work for Depeche Mode on album/single covers and tour projections/designs, the band decided to experiment with new directors for music videos. Corbijn's next project with Depeche Mode was the video for " Suffer Well".

Depeche Mode licensed the Kruder And Dorfmeister remix of "Useless" to Victoria's Secret, for use in their "Natural Miracle Bra" ad campaign. It aired on US television for a few weeks.

Useless (film)

Useless is a 2007 documentary film directed by Jia Zhangke. It is Jia's second full-length documentary film after 2006's Dong. The film follows China's fashion and clothing industry. The film was produced by Jia Zhangke's own Xstream Pictures, in association with the China Film Association and the Mixmind Art and Design Company.

Useless (EP)

Useless is the debut EP by the alternative metal music group Ünloco. The EP was released on April 25, 2000 via Captiva Records. All the songs from this release appeared on the band's major label debut Healing (albeit re-mastered), with the song "I" changed to the title "Nothing".

Useless

Useless may refer to:

  • Useless (film), a 2007 Chinese documentary by Jia Zhangke
  • Useless (EP), a 2000 EP by Unloco
  • "Useless" (song), a 1997 song by Depeche Mode
  • "Useless", a song by Faster Pussycat from The Power and the Glory Hole
  • "Useless", a song by American metalcore band Myka, Relocate from Lies to Light the Way
  • "Inútil" ("Useless"), a song from the musical In the Heights

Usage examples of "useless".

For every hundred useless aberrations there may be one that is useful, that provides its bearer an advantage over its kin.

It was useless to take them to task, to inform them that this behaviour instead of easing their plight only brought out the worst in their superiors and made them the butt of every perceived mistake aboard ship.

With Delilah and her father sharing the kitchen and Darla waiting tables, Addle had found herself wandering around useless.

We selected couples we adjudged to be sufficiently useless to society that they would not be missed, in accordance with my policy.

Various worse than useless devices are advertised by quacks, who, as a class, are afraid to undertake surgical treatment for the cure of varicocele.

Moreover, it is but little affected by variations in alkalinity, which render the other finishing point quite useless.

There was this lump of iron that I had dragged all the way back from the Galactic West, encased in aluminum and neutronium and alnico magnets, hanging there in its orbit, quite useless, so far, but potentially extremely useful.

How dangerous will the Kabras, the only professional fighters in the Amalgamation, turn out to be, when our people can intensify their feelings that to fight an equal force of their own is useless, and that any force of ours they face is just like one of their own?

A broadly sinuous ambery crevice parted the globes, which by reflexive instinct poor Miss Medbury tried to close by contracting all her muscles in a useless defense.

The notices were all in plain block lettering with standard spelling, as laid down by the director -- true Anglo-Saxon was obviously useless for the purpose, and fake archaisms were prohibited.

Every so often, he would take the slowmatch from out the clamp and whirl it around several times in the air before once more securing it back into the serpentine of his clumsy arquebus, for if that scurvy, ill-natured pig of a Seosaidh Scot who had robbed him of his well-earned sleep and set him to this useless, thankless task should come by and find his match unlit, he surely would set about thrashing Raibert.

Dropping the useless arquebus, Raibert sensed that his only chance now lay in escapefor who ever heard of a lone, common man trying to fight a Monster out of Hell with only a pistol and an old chlaidhimhland while he could go back the way he had come, the Monster seemed headed that way too .

Kansas, but at present we are outside the bailiwick of Ford County, and those papers of yours are useless.

The walls of Basilica are high and thick, and chariots are useless in that terrain.

Sha knew it was a useless gesture, but he fired his last bazooka rocket at it anyway, and the enemy pilot dodged it with ease.