bootless
adjEtymology From Middle English boteles, botles, from Old English bōtlēas; equivalent to boot (“profit; use; behoof”) + -less. Doublet of botleas.
1
Profitless; pointless; unavailing.
- I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
- When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, / I all alone beweep my outcast state / And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- APRIL FOOL, Any one imposed on, or sent on a bootless errand on the first of April, on which day it is the custom among the lower people, children, and servants, by dropping empty papers carefully doubled up, sending persons on absurd messages, and such like contrivances, to impose on every one they can, and then to salute them with the title of April-fool.1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,, page 4:
- The lieutenant tried the handle again, but still his efforts were quite bootless. He pushed and kicked, but the door was a strong one.1844, Sir John William Kaye, Peregrine Pultuney: or, Life in India, page 251:
- Synonyms
- fruitless
- Derived terms
- bootlessly, bootlessness