fruitless

Etymology

fruit +‎ -less

Adjective

fruitless (comparative more fruitless, superlative most fruitless)

1. Useless; unproductive.

   The unskilled man's attempt at fixing his car engine was fruitless.

   • 1749, John Cleland, “part 2”, in Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, London: G. Fenton, OCLC 13050889:

     At length, after repeated fruitless trials, he lay down panting by me, kiss'd my falling tears, and asked me tenderly what was the meaning of so much complaining?

2. Bearing no fruit; barren.

   The fruitless woman desperately wanted to have children.

   • 1658, Thomas Browne, “The Garden of Cyrus. Or, The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered. Chapter V.”, in Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, or, A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk. Together with The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered. With Sundry Observations, London: Printed for Hen[ry] Brome at the Signe of the Gun in Ivy-lane, OCLC 48702491; reprinted as Hydriotaphia (The English Replicas), New York, N.Y.: Payson & Clarke Ltd., 1927, OCLC 78413388, page 192:

     According to that Cabaliſticall Dogma: If Abram had not had this Letter [i.e., ה‎ (he)] added unto his Name he had remained fruitleſſe, and without the power of generation: […] So that being ſterill before, he received the power of generation from that meaſure and manſion in the Archetype; and was made conformable unto Binah.

3. (rare) Without fruit.
   • 1923, The Homestead (issues 386-410, page 33)

     The first fruits of the season were eagerly sought after, and everybody was thankful that once more dread winter with its unvarying monotony of fruitless meals was a thing of the past.

   • 1966, Joseph Irving Goodman, Diet and live, page 14:

     […] the many individual claims as to the ideal diet, for instance, the high-carbohydrate diet, the milkless diet, the breadless diet, the meatless diet, the fruit diet or the fruitless diet, the high-protein or the low-protein diet, and innumerable variations.

Anagrams

• resistful