How to Use futility in a Sentence

futility

noun
  • But is such futility meant to last?
    — Steven Louis Goldstein, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Both are franchise records for futility and were set in this game.
    — David Moore, Dallas News, 27 Dec. 2020
  • What irked her most was the foregone futility of the day.
    — Literary Hub, 1 Apr. 2026
  • Life, for him, was a form of theater, a game doomed to futility.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 31 July 2019
  • And what life lessons might be buried within his futility?
    — Devon O’Neil, Outside, 15 Oct. 2025
  • Oakland has not endured such a streak of futility against one team in more than a decade.
    — Matt Kawahara, San Francisco Chronicle, 29 Sep. 2021
  • The futility of that ballclub is what sparked the rebuild that’s led to now.
    — Jacob Calvin Meyer, Baltimore Sun, 28 Mar. 2024
  • The Rapids might not set historic marks for futility in terms of points earned.
    — Ian Nicholas Quillen, Forbes, 16 July 2023
  • The Jets’ record of futility is, in fact, a matter of record.
    — Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 29 Apr. 2021
  • The guards were clearly trying to make sense of the team’s futility.
    — C.j. Holmes, New York Daily News, 20 Jan. 2024
  • The Wild ended their decade-long run of first-round futility.
    — Mark Lazerus, New York Times, 14 May 2026
  • Instead, every game plays out like a study in futility.
    — Hannah Keyser, CNN Money, 22 Apr. 2026
  • This stretch of this type of season could easily adopt a tone of futility.
    — Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 2 Mar. 2026
  • The job-changing trend has revived a debate about the futility of the rat race.
    — Zixu Wang, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Clearly, many boys are struggling with a sense of futility.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Which speaks to the utter futility of choosing not to have published the emails.
    — Andrew Wallenstein, Variety, 11 Dec. 2024
  • Along with the life-saving food can be a message for the combatants to choose peace over the futility of war.
    — William Lambers, Hartford Courant, 19 Jan. 2026
  • But there is an air of futility to the scene, like the coaches are shepherding square pegs into round holes.
    — Rob Picheta, CNN Money, 27 June 2026
  • But time and again, you’re met with feelings of futility and frustration.
    — Lee Bebout, The Conversation, 16 Sep. 2025
  • And a sense of futility is creeping across waterfronts and docks.
    — Calmatters, Mercury News, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Change takes time, though not winning a statewide race since 1994 is a long record of futility.
    — Dallas News, 1 Mar. 2021
  • To say that Babe was – and still is – bigger than life is to engage in senseless futility.
    — Eli Amdur, Forbes.com, 10 Aug. 2025
  • But the Phillies’ futility stands out as a mini-slump at the worst possible time.
    — Photographs By Doug Mills, New York Times, 4 Nov. 2022
  • The Browns, after years of futility, reached the playoffs last season and even won a game there.
    — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Oct. 2021
  • There was an emphasis on the sadness and the futility that was felt in peak pandemic.
    — Paula Aceves, Vulture, 1 Dec. 2025
  • Jorge Soler will put an end to that streak of futility in 2024.
    — Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Clifford got Charlotte to the playoffs twice and broke a number of the team’s records for futility.
    — Scott Fowler, charlotteobserver, 13 Apr. 2018
  • What followed was 20 years of futility.
    — Hannah Keyser, CNN Money, 4 May 2026
  • Preá’s death demonstrates the futility of redemption while still bound to the criminal world.
    — Isabella Wandermurem, Time, 20 Aug. 2025
  • In a city in which the house always wins — and so many others lose and lose — the Raiders’ rotten run of futility is getting old.
    — Michael Silver, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2025

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