worthlessness
nounEtymology From worthless + -ness.
1
Usually The quality of lacking worth, of being valueless, useless or devoid of benefit.
- Kids these days far too often attribute low academic grades to feelings of worthlessness.
- We see men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness under each or any of them.1840 May 5, Thomas Carlyle, “Lecture I. The Hero as Divinity. Odin. Paganism: Scandinavian Mythology.”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1840, →OCLC, page 2:
1 more example
- This general teaching as to the worthlessness of alcohol as a food had been set forth by the leaders in medical profession, and accepted largely by the rank and file of practitioners for about twenty-five years.1905, Carry Nation, chapter 28, in The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, archived from the original on 11 Aug 2014: