unavailing

Adjective

unavailing (comparative more unavailing, superlative most unavailing)

1. Fruitless, futile, useless.
   • The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced...1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament...
   • During the next ten years, efforts to secure support for extending the railway south of Hawick were unavailing.1952 January, H. A. Vallance, “The Waverley Route”, in Railway Magazine, page 5

   Synonyms:

   futile