as in futile
producing no results
an unsuccessful attempt to fix the faucet ourselves
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of unsuccessful
The research was unsuccessful at altering hurricane intensity and was discontinued.
—
Pilar Melendez, NBC news, 10 July 2025
Life-saving efforts were unsuccessful and the man was pronounced dead at the scene, said Officer Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento Police Department spokesperson.
—The Sacramento Bee, Sacbee.com, 29 June 2025
Attempts to impeach Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018, were unsuccessful.
—Avet Demourian, Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2025
The right-leaning publication had been unsuccessful; Moyers moved the paper in a more progressive direction, bringing in writers such as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, and increasing the publication’s investigative reporting and analysis.
—Carmel Dagan, Variety, 26 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for unsuccessful
Pilar Melendez, NBC news, 10 July 2025
Life-saving efforts were unsuccessful and the man was pronounced dead at the scene, said Officer Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento Police Department spokesperson.
—The Sacramento Bee, Sacbee.com, 29 June 2025
Attempts to impeach Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018, were unsuccessful.
—Avet Demourian, Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2025
The right-leaning publication had been unsuccessful; Moyers moved the paper in a more progressive direction, bringing in writers such as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, and increasing the publication’s investigative reporting and analysis.
—Carmel Dagan, Variety, 26 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for unsuccessful
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unsuccessful
Adjective
-
Go with the flow, but not toward the beach: Trying to swim directly toward the beach when caught in a rip current is futile and exhausting.—
NC Weather Bot,
Charlotte Observer,
6 July 2025
-
This group saw military responses as futile, as Iran was assumed to have escalation dominance.—
JAMES JEFFREY,
Foreign Affairs,
4 July 2025
Adjective
-
The price signals are useless because the government prohibited them from being useful.—
The Editors,
National Review,
30 June 2025
-
The devices must also give consumers the option of deactivating such features, unless that action would render the device useless.—
Andrew Brown,
Hartford Courant,
24 June 2025
Adjective
-
Microsoft is well-positioned to run a redo of Valve's abortive Steam Machines effort, only this time without the performance headaches and limited library of Linux ports that plagued that effort.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
18 June 2025
-
In the abortive March 2022 draft deals, Russia even expressed a willingness to return to preinvasion lines.—
Fred Weir,
Christian Science Monitor,
30 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unsuccessful.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unsuccessful. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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