How to use fruitless in a sentence

22 example sentences · adjective

Fruitless means bearing no fruit; barren. Example: “The unskilled man’s attempt at fixing his car engine was fruitless.”

Examples of fruitless by meaning

adjectiveBearing no fruit; barren.

They predicted fruitless falls unless our land-use patterns changed fast.2008, Rowan Jacobsen, “Breakfast in America”, in Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis, New...

adjectiveUnproductive, useless.

The unskilled man’s attempt at fixing his car engine was fruitless.

adjectiveOf a person: unable to have children; barren, infertile.

The fruitless woman desperately wanted to have children.

adjectiveOf a diet, etc.: without fruit.

The first fruits of the season were eagerly sought after, and everybody was thankful that once more dread winter with its unvarying monotony of fruitless meals was a thing of the past.1923, The Homestead, Bloemfontein: The Proprietors, →OCLC, page 33, column 1

More sentences with fruitless

The future is more newly arrived college grads and tourists in some fruitless search for authenticity.2018, Ling Ma, chapter 1, in Severance, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 13. From the entry simulacrum
But now the mystery of these fruitless bonkings might be solved.2002, New Scientist, volume 173, numbers 2324-2331, page 32. From the entry bonking
In the second half of the Sixties Mao's foreign policy has proved fruitless.1968, Atlas, page 27. From the entry Maoize
D., after an apparently fruitless search through all those likely-looking tubes.1967 September 22, The Lincoln Star, 65th year, number 305, Lincoln, Neb., page 27. From the entry mice-less
How fruitless attempts to involve us in war With HIM to AMBASS and with HER to ADOR.1913, John Kendrick Bangs, "To Marse Tom and Meh Lady", The Bookman, Volume XXXVIII, page 114. From the entry ambass
Instead, "mystère admirable," it invites hours of fruitless headscratching.2011, Richard [T.] Neer, “Poussin’s Useless Treasures”, in Herbert L[eon] Kessler, David Nirenberg, editors, Judaism and Christian Art…. From the entry head-scratching
Republicans accused Democrats of wasting time on a fruitless talkathon.2007 July 19, Carl Hulse, “Stymied by G.O.P., Democrats Stop Debate on Iraq”, in New York Times. From the entry talkathon
But all their efforts to "grammarize" Chinese have proved fruitless.1982, Sino-American Relations - Volumes 8-9, page 34. From the entry grammarize
After weeks of fruitless negotiations, Bollinger and his counion members went out on strike, demanding a pay boost.1977, McKee Fisk, Norbert J. Mietus, Applied Business Law. From the entry counion
The balance of that day we spent in continuing a minute and fruitless exploration of the monotonous coast.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp.…. From the entry pebbly
Patterson, the guiding spirit of the many fruitless expeditions which were launched with such high hopes, forelived his time.1912, Bulletin of the Pan American Union, volume 34. From the entry forelive
Again, the current down cycle is anomalous, with the Fed's monetary policies encouraging unusually high levels of stock buybacks and fruitless mergers.2017, Harry S. Dent, Jr.; Andrew Pancholi, “Deep in the Heart of Winter: There’s Just No Denying that Major Winter Cycles Come Once in a…. From the entry downcycle
For the first few months, we took turns dashing home from work at lunchtime in a usually fruitless effort to head off his indoor pooping.2009, Michael Schaffer, “Toy Town”, in One Nation Under Dog: Adventures in the New World of Prozac-Popping Puppies, Dog-Park Politics, and…. From the entry untrainability
He was not, this hot afternoon of a fruitless day—and a day which was supposed to have been an off-duty day—Shapiro felt no gentleness.1972, Richard Lockridge, chapter 11, in Write Murder Down, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company…. From the entry hacker
In due course the Dáil was proclaimed, fruitless efforts were made to suppress it and all its institutions, including, of course, the IRA.1940 Major General Hugh MacNeill, "Na Fianna Éireann; Senior Corps of the Old Army" (An Cosantóir) reprinted in Our Struggle for…. From the entry proclaim
Of all the fool, fruitless jobs, making anything of a creature that begins by deceiving her, is the foolest a sane woman ever undertook.1909, Gene Stratton-Porter, A Girl of the Limberlost. From the entry fool
There are few solid leads, but the possibility of "the wood," a front-page tabloid story, drives him as he makes seemingly fruitless knock-knocks in the neighborhood.2006 August 14, David Carr, “Reporters on Film: Drunks and Tarts”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company…. From the entry knock-knock
His metaphysical grandiloquizing upon the terms sublime and ridiculous, infinitely little and infinitely great, is fruitless of true meaning, and that I suppose was the essence of its emotional value.1921, Max Eastman, “The Discovery of Benign Humor”, in The Sense of Humor, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 169. From the entry grandiloquize

Meaning of fruitless

adjective Bearing no fruit; barren.
adjective Unproductive, useless.
adjective Of a person: unable to have children; barren, infertile.

Full definition of fruitless

Questions about fruitless in a sentence

How do you use fruitless in a sentence?: Fruitless is used as an adjective. For example: “The unskilled man’s attempt at fixing his car engine was fruitless.”
What is a short sentence with fruitless?: “The fruitless woman desperately wanted to have children.”
What does fruitless mean?: Fruitless means bearing no fruit; barren.

Adapted from Wiktionary: fruitless (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use fruitless in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/fruitless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.