pointlessness

English

Etymology

From pointless +‎ -ness.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Noun

pointlessness (countable and uncountable, plural pointlessnesses)

1. (countable) The lack of meaning, purpose, or ideas; the characteristic or condition of being pointless.

   Near-synonyms: purposelessness, meaninglessness, uselessness

   The pointlessness of the discussion only compounded her boredom.

   • 2007 August 4, Allan Kozinn, “The Generation of ’38, Still Kicking”, in The New York Times‎:

     But with unstructured improvisation, the risk that directionlessness will give way to pointlessness is high.

   • 2025 October 1, Christian Wolmar, “Rail Minister at the heart of rail reform”, in RAIL, number 1045, page 35:

     Few political careers start when people are in their 70s, but Hendy is actually relishing it, although he is incensed sometimes by the pointlessness of the posturing by the opposition, which keeps him up late. "The bit I don't like is getting home at 0100 or 0200 in the morning because the opposition have been fruitlessly arguing for a long time."

2. (topology, geometry, uncountable) The quality of not mentioning points.

Derived terms

• PowerPointlessness

Translations

lack of purpose

Esperanto: sensenceco Latvian: bezjēdzība f, bezjēdzīgums m Polish: bezcelowość (pl) f Russian: бессмы́сленность (ru) f (bessmýslennostʹ) Spanish: despropósito (es) m

in geometry or topology

See also

• astigmatism

References

• Pointless topology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Gerla, G., 1995, "Pointless Geometries" in Buekenhout, F., Kantor, W. eds., Handbook of incidence geometry: buildings and foundations. North-Holland: 1015-31.