Word family noun fruit fruition fruiterer adjective fruitful ≠ fruitless fruity verb fruit adverb fruitfully ≠ fruitlessly
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfruitlessfruit‧less /ˈfruːtləs/ adjective FAILfailing to achieve what was wanted, especially after a lot of effort OPP fruitfulfruitless attempt/exercise a fruitless attempt to settle the dispute So far, their search has been fruitless. —fruitlessly adverbExamples from the Corpus
fruitless• Their attempt to settle the dispute by peaceful negotiations proved fruitless.• And why has the determined search for alternatives proved so fruitless?• But all attempts to isolate and identify viruses from infected tissue proved fruitless.• Oldham's attack had a fruitless afternoon against a Rovers' rearguard in which Kevin Moran was outstanding.• After weeks of fruitless argument they finally agreed to go their separate ways.• The result is a crippling and ever-growing burden of fruitless debt.• Program evaluation is commonly thought of as a dry, fruitless endeavor, extolled in theory but ignored in practice.• I spent the next three hours in a fruitless search of her room.• Rescue efforts have been called off after three days of fruitless searching.• When efforts to persuade them to go proved fruitless, the building began to be demolished around their heads.• These discussions proved fruitless, with each side blaming the other for the failure to resolve the growing crisis.fruitless attempt/exercise• The demonstrators denounced the economic summit as a futile and fruitless exercise.• Yet all the signs were that this was going to be a fruitless exercise.• This week, be ready for irritating news and yet another fruitless attempt at communication. 