Futility is the quality of being certain to achieve nothing. The futility of war, an exercise in futility, sheer futility.
It is stronger than difficulty: a futile effort cannot succeed, not merely might not. In medicine, futility is a formal concept about treatment that cannot achieve its goal, and deciding it is one of the hardest calls made. Note futile; and that the Latin root also meant leaky, which is where the pointlessness comes from.
1nounfutilityThe quality of being certain to achieve nothing.
“The soldiers began to see the futility of the war as the losses grew.”
futility is a quality of pointlessness.
Latin futilitas comes from futilis, leaky or worthless — a vessel that will not hold what is poured in.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰew-
Latin
fūtilitās — worthlessness, futility
English, today
futility
From Latin fūtilitās (“worthlessness, futility”). by surface analysis, futile + -ity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA