How to Use futility in a Sentence

futility

noun
Definition of futilitynext
Synonyms for futilitynext
  • The Rapids might not set historic marks for futility in terms of points earned.
    — Ian Nicholas Quillen, Forbes, 16 July 2023
  • The job-changing trend has revived a debate about the futility of the rat race.
    — Zixu Wang, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2023
  • But the Phillies’ futility stands out as a mini-slump at the worst possible time.
    — Photographs By Doug Mills, New York Times, 4 Nov. 2022
  • First of all, there’s the eye-popping futility in shot-making.
    — Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 26 Apr. 2022
  • The thought of this filled me with a sense of futility: my robot could take on any topic, fill any assignment.
    — Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 11 July 2023
  • The Volunteers are trying to end two decades of futility in Gainesville.
    — Creg Stephenson | Cstephenson@al.com, al, 16 Sep. 2023
  • The randomness of teams week-to-week and play-to-play make predictions a practice in futility.
    — Scott Horner, The Indianapolis Star, 27 Sep. 2022
  • In 2021, the rebuilding Orioles were in their fourth straight year of futility, and the product on the field wasn’t any better than when the reboot began.
    — Jacob Calvin Meyer, Baltimore Sun, 19 Sep. 2023
  • This year’s team is poised to challenge that standard for futility.
    — Alex Speier, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Aug. 2022
  • These goals are not an exercise in futility but rather in effort and progress.
    — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2022
  • But one snapshot plucked from two days of pure, undistilled futility comes close.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 5 Jan. 2023
  • But McCarthy wasn’t the only person who spent the week toiling in futility.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 6 Jan. 2023
  • Every futility player the Reds wheel into town makes the already painful truth more painful.
    — Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 5 May 2022
  • The Angels and Detroit will share the longest stretches of futility at eight seasons apiece.
    — Dallas News, 21 Sep. 2022
  • Shoulders slumped, Bogaerts took off his batting gloves on the field, a rare portrait of futility.
    — Alex Speier, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Aug. 2022
  • All that endures are the images documenting the action — and the sense of futility.
    — Mark Jenkins, Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2022
  • The fact that each Omicron subvariant seems to be even more transmissible than the last only adds to the sense of futility.
    — Karen Kaplanscience and Medicine Editor, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2022
  • But their on-court futility has not diminished the team’s bottom line.
    — Andrew R. Graybill, WSJ, 20 Jan. 2022
  • Maybe this all just an exercise in futility, and the real reason Harsin still has a job is that the school couldn’t figure out a way to weasel out of the coach’s $18 million buyout.
    — Joseph Goodman | Jgoodman@al.com, al, 11 Feb. 2022
  • He's obsessed with Sisyphus, the Greek myth of this character stuck in futility.
    — Devan Coggan, EW.com, 15 July 2022
  • And that feeling, more often than not, is one of bitter failure and futility.
    — Justin Changfilm Critic, Los Angeles Times, 2 June 2022
  • The futility of forcing Over the long term, Ma tells Fortune, mandates of any kind stand to undercut each of the goals managers say they’re meant to accomplish in the first place.
    — Jane Thier, Fortune, 13 Jan. 2024
  • Yes, the agony and history of futility leads to frustration.
    — Terry Pluto, cleveland, 20 Feb. 2022
  • In the three days since 19 students and two teachers lost their lives in Uvalde, many Americans have felt a similar sense of futility.
    — Noah Robertson, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 May 2022
  • The fallout from this legislative futility will inevitably reach the Court.
    — Michael Bobelian, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022
  • And it’s this sense of futility that saddens and infuriates Tanner the most.
    — Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2022
  • The show explores, at its creator’s expense, the futility of practice.
    — Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 16 July 2022
  • And still, those statistics don’t fully capture the futility of the defense, which had been in a tailspin since late last season.
    — Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2023
  • After decades of futility, Detroit's roster construction via the draft, trades, and free agency is starting to see the light.
    — Dana Scott, The Arizona Republic, 8 Sep. 2023
  • After the 2016 campaign, many of my colleagues expressed the same feelings: a futility of purpose.
    — Annie Karni, Vogue, 13 Oct. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'futility.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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