How to Use fruitless in a Sentence

fruitless

adjective
  • They made a fruitless attempt to find a solution.
  • It would be fruitless to continue.
  • This play ends fruitless with no points.
    — Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News, 8 Jan. 2026
  • But so much time had passed that much of the search was fruitless.
    — Cara Tabachnick, CBS News, 26 Jan. 2023
  • But the search for these stars has been long and fruitless for many, many years.
    — Jackie Appel, Popular Mechanics, 13 June 2023
  • Hours have passed on the boat, and again and again our casts have been fruitless.
    — Boyce Upholt, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 June 2025
  • Any attempt to poke the bear seemed fruitless.
    — Joel Lorenzi, New York Times, 20 Apr. 2026
  • But in the end, all efforts proved fruitless.
    — Lauren Huff, Entertainment Weekly, 18 Dec. 2025
  • But in the end, all efforts proved fruitless.
    — Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 23 Aug. 2025
  • But those efforts so far have been fruitless.
    — Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 7 Mar. 2026
  • And for the past ten years, these efforts have proved fruitless.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 16 Jan. 2018
  • More than two years of on-and-off talks with Ford were fruitless.
    — Tim Higgins, WSJ, 11 Sep. 2017
  • Her own trek out to Gateway had been fruitless.
    — CBS News, 14 Nov. 2025
  • There have been plenty of chances for teams to break that streak, but all have been fruitless.
    — Orion Sang, Detroit Free Press, 8 June 2018
  • They were presumed dead as the search remained fruitless at the time.
    — Benjamin Vanhoose, PEOPLE.com, 5 Aug. 2020
  • The two had met many times before in talks that often proved fruitless.
    — Oren Liebermann, CNN Money, 11 Sep. 2025
  • But bets on his ousting have so far proven just as fruitless as bets on default.
    — The Economist, 2 Nov. 2017
  • The damage was done; my offers to give him more time or to choose for him were fruitless.
    — Sheeka Sanahori, USA TODAY, 12 Oct. 2024
  • His initial efforts to break out of the Bond mold proved fruitless.
    — Manori Ravindran, chicagotribune.com, 31 Oct. 2020
  • The keypad was broken, and all attempts to type in the code were fruitless.
    — Michael James Rocha, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Oct. 2023
  • Settlers first made their way to the area in 1865 in a fruitless search for gold.
    — Reid Forgrave, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2017
  • And attempts to speak to anyone higher up than the call center are fruitless.
    — Laura Schulte, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 21 Oct. 2020
  • Cano had longed to be a father, and to that point, the couple’s efforts to have a child had been fruitless.
    — Nathan Ruiz, Baltimore Sun, 1 June 2023
  • Her Hinge forays had been largely fruitless.
    — Dan Greene, New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Kershaw led the fruitless brigade to convince Ohtani to join the Dodgers.
    — Andy McCullough, latimes.com, 26 Mar. 2018
  • Their fruitless search may be the last attempt to discover the treasure.
    — Teresa Nowakowski, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 May 2023
  • Love flickers among the ruins, in the form of a brief, fruitless reunion with Bin.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 2 May 2025
  • Thrashing against it was both exhausting and fruitless.
    — Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
  • From there, in the parlor, rounds of chess, billiards, and one last fruitless attempt at backgammon.
    — Hannah Jackson, Vogue, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Both teams had early, fruitless power plays, and both teams had scoring chances that just barely didn’t pan out.
    — Jess Myers, Twin Cities, 22 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fruitless.' 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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