Infinitive complement

• attempt: It would be futile to attempt to estimate our final gains at the present time.

• try: Isn't it futile to try to be the new Microsoft?

• think: Our world is not ideal, and it is futile to think that the commission can create a perfect society.

Modifying Another Word

• utterly: The quote stated " The animal testing regime... is utterly futile.

• ultimately: Yet still there is a feeling that all is ultimately futile.

• somewhat: Even as I reach for the receiver Iâm checking the clock in a somewhat futile effort to fathom the time and place and day.

• equally: Other equally futile attacks were ordered that day by the British 1st Army commander, General Sir Douglas Haig, with similar tragic results.

• largely: The mutual opposition was largely futile, if only because all three initiatives shared the characteristic of being strictly voluntary.

• fairly: It would be fairly futile having a Charlton player of the year award this year.

Adjective complement with noun phrase

• render: For meanings to be attributed on personal whim renders the whole thing futile.

Modifies a noun

• gesture: In every sense it was a futile gesture against the government.

• attempt: He ran the window down in a futile attempt to obtain a better look.

• quest: The Iraq venture was doomed from the outset by a futile quest for a 'New American Empire ' .

• pursuit: Or a question of the futile pursuit of immortality?

• effort: Even as I reach for the receiver Iâm checking the clock in a somewhat futile effort to fathom the time and place and day.

• exercise: What is left is a curious toy, little more than futile exercise in word association.

Used with adjective complement

• prove: All attempts at soothing prove futile: " Do you want an ice cream?

• seem: Well, rest assured, in many ways it seems futile to me too.

• render: Introduce traitors into his country, that the government policy may be rendered futile.

• become: All Burnley fans want to believe; without that belief, the whole damn enterprise becomes futile.