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meaningless

adjective

Simple meaning

Insignificant; not worthy of importance.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

meenihngluhs

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈminɪŋləs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Having no meaning or direction or purpose

  2. Insignificant; not worthy of importance.

  3. Lacking meaning.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Having no meaning or direction or purpose

Used this way, meaningless is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use meaningless

  • “A meaningless endeavor.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

virtually meaninglessmeaningless wordmeaningless phrase

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • mindless

    Having no sensible meaning or purpose.

  • pointless

    Having no purpose; purposeless; unable to effect an aim.

  • unmeaning

    Having no meaning or significance.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • meaningfuladjectiveDerived adjective

    Having a meaning or purpose.

  • meaningfullyadverbDerived adverb

    In a meaningful manner.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: having no meaning or direction or purpose

mindlesssenselessunmeaningDatedpurposeless

Antonyms

Sense: having no meaning or direction or purpose

meaningful

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.