Modifying Another Word

• ultimately: Togo meanwhile will reflect on what might have been after an energetic and vibrant but ultimately fruitless display.

• seemingly: Should his namesake continue his seemingly fruitless 'music ' 'career ' ?

• equally: Looking for the true meaning of texts is equally fruitless.

• largely: Republican efforts to win black voters have proven largely fruitless.

• rather: The first account deals with the rather fruitless last pushing trip of 1980, on which the club tackle ran out.

• often: The same pattern of frenetic, but often fruitless, activity is seen in the public services.

Infinitive complement

• debate: My own view is that such claims of primacy are misleading, and that it is fruitless to debate which aspect is primary.

Modifies a noun

• quest: With breeding time limited, hummingbirds appear reluctant to waste time with fruitless quests for food.

• endeavor: So I'd not read up on the route beforehand - an omission that cost me 6 hours of fruitless endeavor.

• attempt: Their time together is spent in fruitless attempts to recapture lost youth.

• pursuit: Learn when to give up: don't spend forever on a fruitless pursuit.

• search: The fruitless search for a cause is deeply worrying.

• negotiation: These fruitless negotiations had taken the better part of a year.

Used with adjective complement

• prove: Use of the system restore facility also proved fruitless.

• remain: Even appeals to the command center in the Palestine Hotel remained fruitless.

• seem: I have empathy for him, but it seems fruitless.

• render: They have rendered fruitless the most serious work of the present House of Commons.

• appear: Nothing has appeared on radar on a six mile sweep and a search of the harbor has also appeared fruitless.

• make: Their coming is made fruitless by the wandering of their hearts; they have experience of the power of Satan, not of Christ.