pointless

«pointless» in Mova's school dictionary: having no purpose or use — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (pointless); adverb pointlessly; noun pointlessness

meaning for a pupil

1) Pointless means having no purpose or use. tree →

2) In a game or test, pointless can mean scoring no points. tree →

sense in the lessons

People say «It's pointless» when an action will not help or change anything. In stories it can show that a character has given up or that a fight is senseless. In maths and games, a pointless team has 0 points. Phrases: it's pointless to …, a pointless argument, completely pointless.

examples

• It's pointless arguing with my brother; he never listens. tree →
• Shouting at the rain is pointless. tree →
• The meeting felt long and pointless. tree →
• Our team was pointless after the first round. tree →
• It's pointless to water the garden when it's raining. tree →
• Without a plan, the trip seemed pointless. tree →

note

-less means «without», so pointless = without a point (purpose). In a scoring game «pointless» means 0 points. «Pointless» is about having no purpose; do not confuse it with «blunt» (a pencil without a sharp point).

In the corpora

• Reading-log comments are meant to show what you thought, so copied ones are pointless.
• «Everyone knows homework is pointless» sounds like a fact, but it is an opinion dressed up as one.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «pointless» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.