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View synonyms for fool's errand

fool's errand

noun

  1. a completely absurd, pointless, or useless errand.


fool's errand

noun

  1. a fruitless undertaking
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Idioms and Phrases

A fruitless mission or undertaking, as in Asking the bank for yet another loan was clearly a fool's errand . [c. 1700]
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Example Sentences

Friends, colleagues, and writers I respected made, I thought, persuasive cases for improving the experience—ignoring Musk altogether, deleting your old tweets—even as others insisted, convincingly, that this was not just a fool’s errand but a dangerous one.

From Slate

N/A Why: In my opinion, it’s not only a fool’s errand to guess, but also foolish to try to game out how the ultimate transition of power will shape up, either way—Trump and his cronies are already planning another coup attempt if he loses, after all.

From Slate

“I think copying any exact model of another team is probably a fool’s errand. We need to be able to do it in our own way.”

Predicting the future is a fool's errand and we live in bizarre times.

From Salon

In politics, voters get the final word; yelling at them is a fool’s errand.

From Slate

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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