Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Unavailing   Listen
adjective
Unavailing  adj.  Ineffective in achieving the desired result; ineffectual; futile; of no use; useless; pointless.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Unavailing" Quotes from Famous Books



... my notions of consistency, after their having suffered the preceding half hour's bombardment, I requested to be shewn to the chamber of the invalid, saying that I was a medico, and might be of service to her. When she found remonstrance unavailing, she at length shewed me into a room up-stairs, where there was a very genteel-looking young girl, the very picture of Portuguese health, lying with her eyes shut, in full dress, on the top of the bed-clothes, where ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... fashion-plate or a fiend, the life of mutual love may be awakened, and a true marriage may supersede the empty form. Not until faithful and prolonged efforts to establish a true marriage within the legal bonds have proved unavailing; and only where adultery, desertion, habitual drunkenness, or gross brutality and cruelty demonstrate the utter impossibility of a true marriage, is husband or wife justified in seeking to escape the bond, and to revert to the ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... small insidious way. They were tickles of the something destined to grow into daily and deadly desire. And I didn't know, never dreamed—I, who had lived with John Barleycorn for so many years and laughed at all his unavailing attempts to win me. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... water to drink—we sprinkled it in her face. We sent for the apothecary, who lived hard by, and he arrived in a few moments, with a parcel of tranquillising medicines. These, however, were equally unavailing. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... they thought of his mother, in whose heart of hearts he had been enshrined as the idol of her whole affection, that their spirits became truly touched. Many a mother assumed in her own person, by the force of imagination, the sinking woman's misery, and poured forth, in unavailing tears, the undeniable proofs of the sincerity with which she participated in Honor's bereavement. As for Flanagan, a deadly weight of odium, such as is peculiar to the Informer in Ireland, fell upon both him and his. Nor was this all. Aided by ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... now sometime ceased; the bout had been prolonged (it was conceded) unduly; and it now began to be a question how it might conclude. Hence Tom's refusal. Yet that refusal was avowedly only for the moment, and it was avowedly unavailing; the king's foragers, denied by Tom at the Sans Souci, would be supplied at The Land we Live in by the gobbling ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... possessed any sense of humor, he would leave the task to laymen. His Church did not establish duelling; on the contrary, she censured it; but it was countenanced by her principles, and her protest was unavailing. The judicial combat was an appeal to God, like the ordeal by fire or water, or the purgation by oath. The Church patronised those forms of superstition which brought men to her altars, and ministered to her profit and power, and she ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... deceased Highland lady (tending as it does to foster unavailing sorrow) may be with advantage omitted from the address, which would therefore run - The Cottage, Castleton ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... furious, soundly rating everybody, and declare that the Naya herself should deal with the whole lot as mutineers; whereupon, seeing all excuses for further halt unavailing, loads would be taken up, and within a few moments the whole string of half-clad natives would go laughing and singing on ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal admonition proved unavailing. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... unavailing, was not at all less spirited in the following reign, when they were compelled, in common with the rest of France, to acknowledge the power of the fifth Henry. But they again disengaged themselves from the English crown in 1431, after ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... divided their rations with us, but were always inexorable in their cruelty to the French prisoners; and no persuasion of ours could induce them to spare the lives of one of these unhappy people, whose cries and entreaties to the English to intercede for, or save them, were always unavailing. They were either stabbed before our faces, or dragged to the top of a hill commanding a view of some fortress occupied by the French, and, in sight of their countrymen, their throats were cut from ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... insomuch that not a day passed in which he did not put some one to death. He took extraordinary precautions for his own personal safety, which were so far effectual, but every effort to prevent desertion was unavailing. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... It is never void of danger, frequently of fatal issue, and invariably productive of regret. It is one against which there is the least resource, where patience, fortitude and ingenuity are in most cases, unavailing, except to protract a struggle with destiny, which, at length, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... band, Fever and pain and pale consumptive care, Determin'd took their stand: 55 Nor did the cruel ravagers design To finish all their efforts at a blow; But, mischievously slow, They robb'd the relic and defac'd the shrine. With unavailing grief, 60 Despairing of relief, Her weeping children round Beheld each hour Death's growing power, And trembled as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... but a sound of groaning in the library. The tall clock standing near the drawing-room door stopped at twelve, and a door was found open which Mr. Dennison is sure he shut tight on retiring. A second unavailing search. One servant left the next morning. Night 4: Footfalls on the stairs. The library door, locked by Mr. Dennison's own hand, is heard to unclose. The timepiece on the library mantel-shelf strikes twelve; but it is slightly fast, ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... had begun to curdle in Mrs. Grimes's bosom, at an early and now rather remote age. Years of unavailing struggle to convince Mr. Jason Grimes that more of his valuable time should be devoted to providing for the wants of his family, and less to leading the discussion on the condition of the country in the free parliament that met around the stove in the corner grocery, had carried ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... every endeavour to obtain a Photograph of the corresponding page of the CODEX VATICANUS, B, (No. 1209, in the Vatican,) has proved unavailing. If the present Vindication of the genuineness of Twelve Verses of the everlasting Gospel should have the good fortune to approve itself to his Holiness, POPE PIUS IX., let me be permitted in this unadorned and unusual manner,—(to which I would fain add some circumstance ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... could not leave them what he considered as his own property, he should leave at least his own life for an example; an innocence of conduct which they might imitate, and by which they might acquire immortal fame. He remonstrated with composure against their unavailing tears and (388) lamentations, and asked them, whether they had not learnt better to sustain the shocks of fortune, and the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Consuls had protested on behalf of their respective governments against the recent indiscriminate assault upon non-combatants. We were pleased to hope that the protests were not unavailing. They were in conformity with the spirit, if not with the letter, of International Law; and it was stated that the Boers desired to stand well with any and every nation that might possibly make real their Utopian ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... destruction of the project, and of the projectors, would quickly follow the discovery. It has been said that the provision which limits the appropriation of money for the support of an army to the period of two years would be unavailing, because the Executive, when once possessed of a force large enough to awe the people into submission, would find resources in that very force sufficient to enable him to dispense with supplies from the acts of the legislature. But the question again recurs, upon what ...
— The Federalist Papers

... made fresh attempts to release my foot—all unavailing, and all the more maddening because I could feel that my foot wasn't much caught—only just enough to hold it. But enough is as good as a feast! I felt that if I could get a straight pull at it I might ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... attached to the deceased. He leaped upon the chiefs who were carrying the King's body; he desired to die with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted in making numerous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had it in his heart to die with him, but was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... commerce, and above all the crushing burden of taxation, will dispose the controlling and possessing classes to seek alternatives to a return to the era of competing alliances and armaments. Mild and conservative measures will be obviously unavailing. During the years of exhaustion following the war, resolute leaders of public opinion will be setting themselves everywhere to frame schemes of international relations which shall yield adequate guarantees of peace. For the first time in ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... dark and bloody ground, a man was beaten to death in an open shed, on the corner of two public streets, where the sound of the blows, the curses of his two tormentors, and his shrieks and unavailing prayers for mercy were continued a whole forenoon, and sent the complaining air shuddering to the ears of thousands, not one of ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... committed. The world never turns back, it moves always forward, always upward. Our soldiers may go out, as the Crusaders went of old, with absolute faith that their service will not be given in vain, that their effort and daring will not be unavailing. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... of the men who had taken the boats was made, and Zeke and Fred even went down the stream a mile vainly hoping that they might find the boat stranded somewhere in the region. Their search was unavailing and when they returned to the camp it was with a fixed opinion that the sole solution of their difficulties was to be found in patiently remaining in camp until Pete and John had made their long journey ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... laugh, and, finding all remonstrances unavailing, he quickened his pace and walked on in silence till they reached the music-seller's, where, after some deliberation, they obtained the requisite music, and, after a few more errands, began to ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... watched the rapid decline of a darling child, and marked with a bursting heart the approaching footsteps of the spoiler, can imagine how powerless we felt at that time. The wealth of the Indias, had we possessed it, would have been freely given, although it would have been unavailing, to shield that loved and gentle form from pain, and we were obliged to look hopelessly on, while our little patient, suffering daughter sank lower and lower every day. In vain were our parental arms outstretched for her protection; from death we could not save her. She had ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... does all the damage in the world, the windows had been carefully nailed down above, and the lower sashes could only be raised in the mildest weather, for the men lay just below. I had suggested a summary smashing of a few panes here and there, when frequent appeals to headquarters had proved unavailing, and daily orders to lazy attendants had come to nothing. No one seconded the motion, however, and the nails were far beyond my reach; for, though belonging to the sisterhood of "ministering angels," I had no wings, and might as well have asked for Jacob's ladder, as a pair of steps, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... and frost; and in stormy weather the old woman was seen to rise out of the woods and stir and push the clouds before her with a broom. For a hundred yards around Witch Rock the ground is still accursed, and any attempt to break it up is unavailing. Nearly a century ago a scoffer named Reynolds declared that he would run his plough through the enchanted boundary, and the neighbors watched the attempt from ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... and flesh are failing, My spirit yielding in the strife; And anguish wild as unavailing Sweeps in ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... unsatisfying, baseless, idle, trifling, unserviceable, bootless, inconstant, trivial, unsubstantial, deceitful, ineffectual, unavailing, useless, delusive, nugatory, unimportant, vapid, empty, null, unprofitable, visionary, fruitless, profitless, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... they questioned her. Pleading, threatening, coaxing were equally unavailing, and when Mrs. Harcourt, seeing the group, came out upon the piazza, Gwen flew to her, saying that ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks

... accounts contained in these despatches. After making every fair allowance for the peculiar difficulty of such an undertaking, it seems impossible any longer to deny that the efforts which have hitherto been made for the civilization of the Aborigines have been unavailing; that no real progress has yet been effected, and that there is no reasonable ground to expect from them greater suceess in future. You will be sensible with how much pain and reluctance I have come to this ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... surer I became that he, the omnipotent one, had ordained it, and I fancied him reading my letters and destroying them, a thin smile lighting his chubby face as he thought of the easy way in which I was being outwitted. I went to my mother for help. She knew nothing of my unavailing struggles, and was herself offended and heart-sick. At my entreaty she overcame her pride and wrote to Mr. Blight inquiring as to Penelope's welfare. In return her existence was recognized; hardly more than ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... impossible, you have nobly consented to relinquish all thoughts of it why then tear your own heart, and torture his, by an intercourse which seems nothing but an ill-judged invitation to fruitless and unavailing sorrow?" ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... did Adrian wander through the city, but search and question were alike unavailing; all whom he encountered and interrogated seemed to regard him as a madman, and these were indeed of no kind likely to advance his object. Wild troops of disordered, drunken revellers, processions of monks, or here ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... of death To human dignity, and human pride; 'Tis sad, to mark how short the longest life— How brief was thine! Thy day is done, And all its complicated hopes and fears Lie buried, ABEL! in an early grave. The unavailing tear for thee shall flow, And love and friendship faithful record keep Of all thy varied worth, thy anxious strife For fame and years, now gone for ever! Yet o'er thy tomb science and learning Bend in mute regret, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... cares than those of feeding you. Alas, what rampant weeds now shame my fields, And what a mildew'd crop the furrow yields! My rambling vines unwedded to the trees Bear shrivel'd grapes, my myrtles fail to please, 90 Nor please me more my flocks; they, slighted, turn Their unavailing looks on me, and mourn. Go, seek your home, my lambs; my thoughts are due To other cares than those of feeding you. Aegon invites me to the hazel grove, Amyntas, on the river's bank to rove, And young Alphesiboeus to a seat Where branching elms exclude the midday heat— "Here fountains spring-here ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... minded me of the sweet counsel we had taken together, when summer came over the hills and walked by the watercourses. They bade me remember the good tidings of great joy which they had brought me when my eyes were dim with unavailing tears. My lips trembled to their call. The war-whoop chanted itself into a vesper. A happy calm lifted from my heart and quivered out over the valley, and a comfort settled on the sad old house as I stretched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of the silver,—which was, in fact, held at the moment by the Albemarle Street hotel-keeper as part security for his debt,—and she was quite sure that any application to Mrs. Carbuncle for either the silver or the debt would be unavailing. But she might, perhaps, cause annoyance by a letter, and could, at any rate, return insult for insult. She therefore wrote to her ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... journal in Latin of the state of his illness, and the remedies which he used, under the title of Aegri Ephemeris, which he began on the 6th of July, but continued it no longer than the 8th of November; finding, I suppose, that it was a mournful and unavailing register. It is in my possession; and is written with ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... expense the exhibition was given, looked particularly annoyed at the defect, and, vowed bitter vengeance on the head of the chief officer of the show, who, fretting, puffing, perspiring, busied himself in idle orders and unavailing threats. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... out of regard for Messer Musciatto; and there it so happened that he fell sick. The two brothers forthwith placed physicians and servants in attendance upon him, and omitted no means meet and apt for the restoration of his health. But all remedies proved unavailing; for being now old, and having led, as the physicians reported, a disorderly life, he went daily from bad to worse like one stricken with a mortal disease. This greatly disconcerted the two brothers; and one day, hard by the room in which ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... to the point of indignant but unavailing protest; for she too knew how the boy, long years ago, had expiated to the limit of repentance and suffering the one sensational if venial ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... the wall, so the arab wasn't so badly fixed, after all. Besides, he owned property. It consisted of a bullfrog which he carried in his mouth, with its legs and web feet protruding in wriggly, but unavailing, protest. ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple

... Smallbones as already dead. He hastened down into his cabin, as soon as he arrived on board, to ascertain the condition of Snarleyyow, whom he found as well as could be expected, and occasionally making unavailing attempts to lick the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... or unavailing regret crossed the judge's face as his head sank back again against the high ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... over space to distant spheres The lightnings are prevailing Th' ungodly rise, and all their tears And sighs are unavailing. The day of grace is past and gone; They shake before the Judge's Throne All unprepared ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... over subjects differing from him in religion, and the more probable reading of the rule as to the building of places of worship. Against them was the unquestioned text of the Majestatsbrief, not yet nine years old. The new emperor did not meditate a breach of faith. Real violence was unavailing where the opponents were in a large majority. The Counter-Reformation had produced in Central Europe a scheme of persecution, which stopped short of tragedy, and laboured to accomplish, by infinite art and trouble, what the readier methods of the Holy Office and the Penal Law were ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... the others are so strong, he urges; England so unprepared; Kaiser at such a pass; 'War like to be, about the Palatinate Dispute [our friend Friedrich Wilhelm's]: Where is England to get, allies?'—and hours long of the like sort. A judicious wet cloth; which proved unavailing. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... oversteps the limits of his usual gentleness, and cannot find language strong enough to express his indignation. The peasants are criminals against whom he invokes all laws human and divine. If friendly negotiation is unavailing, the magistrates should hunt them down as if they were robbers and assassins. "And yet," adds he—and we require at least one feature to remind us of Melanchthon—"let them take pity on the orphans when having recourse to the penalty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... prayed most earnestly to God; in vain the venerable Naimes, the Nestor of our ballads, offered to serve Ogier all the rest of his life, and begged the Dane "not to forget the Saviour, who was born of the Virgin at Bethlehem." All their devotion and prayers were unavailing. Ogier, pitiless, placed one of his heavy hands on the youthful head, and with the other drew his sword, his terrible sword "Courtain." Nothing less than the intervention of an angel from heaven could have put an end to this terrible scene ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... was now intense, he seized the keys, and again set to work. But all his attempts to open the drawers were unavailing, and this was not so much owing to the shaking of his hands as to his continual misconceptions. He could see, for instance, that a certain key would not fit the lock, and yet he continued to try ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... the court stated their willingness to hear the case themselves in the presence of the commissioners, who would thereby be enabled to understand its merits; but this proposition was at once rejected, and every effort towards reconciliation proved unavailing.[98] ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... to think that it had saved the situation, but he was anxious to make sure. Edging his chair by slow degrees, he turned discreetly round. With the tail of his eye he could see "the man himself" standing at the far end of the room. He saw too that his own effort, though supreme, had been unavailing. It had deceived no one, least of all S.K.R. "The man himself" stood on the very hearth of the club, with his back to the fireplace. It was the attitude of mastery, a mastery the more superb because ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... us in urging on the rest; but unless a general rush were made, nothing could be done. I felt as if my heart would burst with indignation and dread—indignation that strong men should see innocent ones suffer, dread lest our efforts might be unavailing. A'Dale and I rushed among the crowd, calling on them to come on. Our actions were perceived, though our words may not have been heard, by those in authority. Guards were advancing towards us. The magistrates ordered the executioners to proceed with ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... father, Sims Welland, traveling in Europe on business, nor her aunt, Mrs. Thatcher Forbes, in whose charge she had been left. Ostensibly she had been going to visit the Westerleys, that was all: Mrs. Forbes's misgivings as to a twenty-year-old girl crossing the continent alone had been unavailing against Io's ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... his weary and unavailing way into all the places listed, John made his final report to Colette who ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... hurrying towards them, began to relate, with expressions of grief and consternation, the sad fate which he believed to have befallen the young stranger, and the exertions that he had made to save his life, but which had, unhappily, proved unavailing to avert the calamity. The sorrow of the Nausett Indian seemed excessive; and Tisquantum probably considered it so, for he listened with perfect calmness to his recital, and then merely replied, 'Happily, the youth is safe. Mahneto has succored him, and I ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... Mansion. A merchant named Pitti built a palace in Florence, and though kings and grand dukes have inhabited it since, it is still the Pitti. There is nothing so democratic as language. You may alter a name by trick when force is unavailing. A noble lord in Segovia, following the custom of the good old times, once murdered a Jew, and stole his house. It was a pretty residence, but the skeleton in his closet was that the stupid commons would not call it anything ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... through which she gazes is seen the pale night sky and in the heavens hangs the thread of a moon. Its light is unavailing alongside of the artificial moon—an enormous electric light. This lifts its brilliant, dazzling circumference high in the centre of the mill street. I have but to move a trifle aside from the window coping's shelter to receive a blinding blaze. But Molly has been subtle enough to discover the natural ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... interview with his late sergeant forced many unavailing and painful reflections upon Waverley's mind. It was clear from the confession of the man that Colonel Gardiner's proceedings had been strictly warranted, and even rendered indispensable, by the steps taken in Edward's name to induce the soldiers of his troop to mutiny. The ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... could she have read her daughter's heart at that moment, maternal affection might not have been so deeply pained as it was by this strange silence. Regret, deep, though unavailing, had been Caroline's portion, from the moment she had reflected soberly on her rejection of St. Eval. She recalled his every word, his looks of respectful yet ardent admiration, and she wept at that infatuation which had bade her act as she had ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... new home among the rocks and pine-trees of Nova Scotia. The foundation of the enterprise was a monopoly of the fur-trade, and in its favor all past grants were unceremoniously annulled. St. Malo, Rouen, Dieppe, and Rochelle greeted the announcement with unavailing outcries. Patents granted and revoked, monopolies decreed and extinguished, had involved the unhappy traders in ceaseless embarrassment. De Monts, however, preserved De Chastes's old company, and enlarged it, thus making ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Henri did not abandon his cause till not a hope was left; and even at the last he lingered at Le Mans, and fought desperately in the Place de l'Eperon, establishing a battery of cannon which long kept the enemy at bay. But all was unavailing, and he yielded to necessity. He arrived at Laval at the close of day, spent and exhausted, and entered a house where he entreated to be allowed to rest. He was warned that he might run the risk of being surprised by Westermann,—'My greatest want,' said he, 'is ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... arrogant, egotistical, overweening, vainglorious; nugatory, fruitless, ineffectual, frustrate, unavailing, bootless, futile, abortive, ineffective, empty; delusive, chimerical, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... follower for ridding himself of it, he again galloped on. The man's act was unavailing to save himself, for he was overtaken and cut down before he had ridden many strides; then Ralph and his party instantly reined up to examine the state of Walter, and the two survivors of the band of murderers continued ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... every day. Every time the men passed the galley, they saw long rows of them set out to cool. Many a midnight plundering expedition had been planned against the galley, but without success. The door and windows were securely fastened at sundown, and all attempts to effect an entrance were unavailing. It was also useless to attempt to bribe the cook, for Blinks, who was a strict accountant, always knew how many pies were made every day, and if any of them were missing, the cook was sure to suffer. One evening, while Frank and Simpson were engaged ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... Philidor must have died at once. But she followed him to the H™tel Dieu, and nibbled silently at what he had ordered. His efforts to relieve the tension were unavailing so he gave it up and at last led the way to the market-place where Clarissa was unpacked and ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... aside, quickly routed the daring intruder, and followed his retreat to the very mouth of the "earth," where she turned back, threatened by the great hounds that stood without. But even the reckless courage of maternity was unavailing. Soon the noise of blows and of falling earth was heard, as the passage was gradually opened by brawny farm labourers, working with spade and pick, and assisted in their task by the eager huntsman, who ever and anon thrust a long bramble-spray ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... thought belonged to his daughter. No tidings of her had been heard, although one gentleman thought that he once had met with a girl answering to her description in the stage coach between Lexington and Cincinnati. All search in that quarter was unavailing, and over her fate a dark mystery lay, until Julia suddenly appeared and threw light on the matter. The afflicted father (for she had no mother) was sent for, and when told where his child was laid, asked permission to have her disinterred and taken to his family burial ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... and a Peace Conference was summoned in December. Delegates from the belligerent states and ambassadors from the Great Powers came together in London. But their labors in the cause of peace proved unavailing. Turkey was unwilling to surrender Adrianople and Bulgaria insisted on it as a sine qua non. The Peace Conference broke up and hostilities were resumed. The siege of Adrianople was pressed by the Bulgarians with the aid of 60,000 Servian troops. ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... would I not give to see you? Oh, this fearful curse of poverty! I must find some means of escape from my difficulties, or go mad. I cannot live without you. I have planned a thousand impossible schemes, which I have been obliged to abandon as unavailing. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... without them, it would be no representation of real life, which it does not fail to be. Some tears will undoubtedly be shed over it, but the sufferings and sorrows are such that we feel they are, after all, leading to happiness; and we are not made to dwell upon pictures of unnecessary misery or unavailing misfortune. Let it not be supposed, however, that we are speaking of a namby-pamby tale of the luxuries and successes of what is called "high life," for this book has nothing of that character. We mean only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... this operation the Spaniards had the hardest duty, being employed in their boats in carrying out hawsers, and even in heaving them in. Success seemed certain to the British squadron till the Pompee broke her sheer; after that, it was one continued but unavailing struggle to recover the ground we had lost by this misfortune: and we retreated to Gibraltar when all hope was at an end, the Admiral justly considering the importance of repairing the damages already sustained, and of preserving the lives of his gallant crew, which would be uselessly ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... unpromising. Evidently all the family but the young man were away for the summer, and the doors and windows were all boarded up. There was not a bell to ring. I pounded on the boards that covered the door, but it was unavailing. The young woman called to me that the young man lived in the front room of the topmost floor, and could not hear me, and I glanced up and saw that one window alone of all those in the house was not boarded up. Instantly I hopped upon the seat beside the driver and said, ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler

... both their candidates and a long vacancy in the bishopric. Henry of Winchester was, however, not yet ready openly to abandon the cause of his brother, and he busied himself later in the year with efforts to bring about an understanding between the opposing parties, which proved unavailing. A meeting of representatives of both sides near Bath led to no result, and a journey of Henry's to France, perhaps to bring the influence of his brother Theobald and of the king of France to bear in favour of peace, was also ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... compelled to write of Carlyle these sad words: "For many years after she had left him, when he passed the spot where she was last seen alive he would bare his gray head in the wind and rain, his features wrung with unavailing sorrow." ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst

... he was young and the first letter had hinted that he possessed fair looks. Yet moments came in which the mere idea of him was terrifying, and this, in swiftly changing moods, changed to forms that seemed to bring her peace, a surcease of hunger and cold, of unavailing toil, of carking fear ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... grandeur, and pathos, from the sense of irreparable loss, of never-ending, unavailing ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... Quite so. Though I dismiss Dark, unavailing reverie, I just hint, in parenthesis, There is no stupid calumny Born of a babbler in a loft And by the world repeated oft, There is no fishmarket retort And no ridiculous report, Which your true friend with a sweet smile Where fashionable circles meet A hundred times will not repeat, Quite inadvertently ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... necessarily go to the devil. In all the moralities he was perfect. He was a married man, with a wife and six children, all of whom he brought up and educated on L250 a year. He never was in debt; he performed all his duties—such as they were—and passed his time in making rude and unavailing attempts to convert his poorer neighbours. There was a union,—or poor-house—in the neighbourhood, to which he would carry morsels of meat in his pocket on Friday, thinking that the poor wretches who had flown in the face of their ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... tired legs could hardly support our aching bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and chatting gayly ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... knowledge. She must be found, and whether that could be done quickly, by search or by chance, or whether it would take a long time of waiting, he could not say. He felt sure, that she must disclose herself, sooner or later, but if not, and if their search continued unavailing, then he held out ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... in which it was about to be robbed of its beautiful ornament. But his hands were bound; and at the first movement he made, he felt the grasp of the powerful Indian who directed the band, pressing his shoulder like a vise. Immediately conscious how unavailing any struggle against such an overwhelming force must prove, he submitted to his fate, encouraging his gentle companions by a few low and tender assurances, that the natives seldom failed to ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... course, of a secession more serious and prolonged than that which concerns a particular stage of some measure. There have been occasions when the party in Opposition, after having fought their best against some obnoxious measure in all its former stages, and finding that further struggle would be unavailing, consider that they can make their protest more effectively, and draw public attention more directly to the nature of the controversy, by withdrawing in a body from the House of Commons, and leaving the Government alone with their responsibility. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... misused and indignant friend. I reminded him that he ought not, like the stag in the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from difficulties, in which his talents, as a portrait or landscape painter, had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, as well as conception, of his painting, and reminded him that, far from feeling dishonoured by so superb a specimen of his talents being exposed to the general view of the public, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... he, "my son, will you thus break your father's heart with unavailing sorrow? Have I not often told you, that we came into this world but to prepare for a better? For that better life, my dear boy, your father is prepared. Instead then of weeping, rejoice with me, my son, that my troubles are so near an end. To-morrow, I set out for immortality. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... met our eyes. The ship had a number of animals on board which were being taken to England for a menagerie. In their haste to leave, the crew had either forgotten to unloose them, or feared that by liberating them, they might meet in their rage a worse enemy than even the fire. In wild and unavailing efforts, they dashed furiously against the iron bars that inclosed them, and their fearful cries almost drowned the hissing and crackling sound of the flames. At length they reached the mizzenmast, and the falling yards ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... vitriol. It could only be decided that it had not been an ordinary case of neighborly "punsing," and that there must have been a "grudge" in the matter. Spring and Braddy had disappeared, and all efforts to discover their whereabouts were unavailing. ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... capturing the Albanian leader, lost his own horse. Attacked on all sides, he must have fallen and yielded, when Sidney came to the rescue and struck down his assailants. Individual valor, however, proved unavailing against the might of numbers. After nearly two hours' desperate opposition, the convoy still made way. Charge succeeded charge in the vain effort to prevent its effecting a junction with the garrison, two thousand of whom were waiting ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... assurance that our sufferings are not special and peculiar, but common to us with many others. Death has always been a terror to me, and at times, nay generally, religion and philosophy have been altogether unavailing to mitigate the terror in any way. But it has been a comfort to me to reflect that whatever death may be, it is the inheritance of the whole human race; that I am not singled out, but shall merely have to pass through what the weakest ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... Reef. In going through one of the passages across the Barrier Reef his vessel ran aground, and in order to lighten it he was obliged to throw overboard six of his heaviest cannon. In late years efforts have been made to secure these cannon as souvenirs, but the search for them has proved unavailing. One may easily imagine that they have been long since entombed in thick ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... should constantly have their oars in their hands, stretched out, so as to be ready to plunge them into the water at a moment's warning. The skill and experience of the Rhodian, however, and the extreme lightness and celerity of his vessel, rendered all these precautions unavailing; for, not content with securing his escape, he mocked the Romans, by often lying to till they came near him, and then rowing round them. The Carthaginian senate were now able to have frequent communication with the garrison by means of this Rhodian: his ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... pot to the destination of its purchaser. Probably to facilitate transportation, the boy removed his hat and placed the pot obliquely on the back part of his head, but a sudden movement caused it to slip forward and downward over the head. Unavailing efforts were made at the time and after he reached home, to remove the pot from his head, but in vain, and he continued all the night greatly prostrated by fright, hunger, and thirst, together with the efforts at removal. The next morning he was taken to a neighboring blacksmith, who, by ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... were unavailing. The speckled chicken surreptitiously introduced under the yellow hen's hovering wings, enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... manoeuvering and of using his war chariots, their inferiority was marked. Cyaxares, now, if not previously, actual king, withdrew awhile from the war, and, convinced that all the valor of his Medes would be unavailing without discipline, set himself to organize the army on a new system, taking a pattern from the enemy, who had long possessed some knowledge of tactics. Hitherto, it would seem, each Median chief had ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... passage to Gibraltar was prodigiously impeded by continual foul winds, and heavy swells. "Nothing," writes his lordship, at this anxious period, "can be more unfortunate, than we are in our winds; but, God's will be done! I submit. Human exertions are absolutely unavailing. What man could do, I have done. I hope that the wind will come to the eastward. What ill fortune! but, I cannot help myself." Thus did the hero complain, and thus did he ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... priests, and augurs having proved unavailing, that of women was next sought. A noble lady, Valeria by name, who with other suppliants had sought the Temple of Jupiter, was inspired by a sudden thought, which seemed sent by the god himself. Rising, and bidding the other noble ladies to ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... at the hands of the doctors. I often talked with them on the subject, and tried to reason them out of the superstitious belief, defying the doctors to kill me, or even make me ill; but my talks were unavailing, and they always met my arguments with the remark that I was a white man, of a race wholly different from the red man, and that that was the reason the medicine of the doctors would not affect me. These villainous doctors might be either men or women, and any one of them finding an Indian ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... very freely. The attention of the public had been for some time directed toward the complicated difficulties of the Prince of Wales's situation. His debts had now become an intolerable burden; and all applications to his royal father being unavailing, it was determined by his friends to throw his Royal Highness on the generosity of the House of Commons. At the head of those who hoped to relieve the prince of his embarrassments were Lord Loughborough, Fox, and Sheridan. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... "You heard what the minister said? You'll die and go to hell unless you repent. Get up and be saved ...;" and she drew him to his feet, his struggles unavailing against her. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... unavailing, for after the three first posts I had to wait two hours, whilst the people at the post-house went, fair and softly, to the farm, to bid them bring up the horses which were carrying in the first-fruits of ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... Austrian Ambassador now entered, both anxious to know Her Majesty's intentions with regard to visiting the theatre, in order to make a party to ensure her a good reception; but all their persuasions were unavailing. She thanked the deputation for their friendship; but at the same time told them that her mind was still too much agitated from recent scenes to receive any pleasure but in the domestic cares of her family, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... exaltation of courage he was strong as well as bold. As he would others should do for him so would he do for them. It was the thought of his wife and children that nerved him to such heroic, desperate effort, and alas, so unavailing! ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... in Choshu were finally brought to a close. The efforts of the shogun, although conducted at great expense, were unavailing. Satsuma, when summoned to render aid in crushing the rebellious prince, declined to join in the campaign. Through the efforts of Saigo Kichinoske,(305) a treaty of amity was effected between the two clans. The kind treatment of the Choshu prisoners in the ...
— Japan • David Murray

... "Thy heart is full of sorrow; but if you will listen to, and profit by my words, your sorrow shall be turned into joy. You have been grieving over the hours which have been run to waste, without pausing to reflect, that while you have been occupied with these unavailing regrets, another hour has glided away past your recall forever; and will be added to your already lengthened list of opportunities misimproved. You grieve that your name is not placed on the lists of fame. Cease from thy fruitless longings. Discharge faithfully your ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... he continued, a thing to shed the tear of unavailing regret for, though it was not a transitory phase, or a state of transition, for the condition that now existed had always existed. The new reading public was larger than ever before not merely because there was a fresh demand for reading, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... protection, which rendered their own action unavailing, both irritated and piqued the engineer. The relative inferiority which it proved was of a nature to wound a haughty spirit. A generosity evinced in such a manner as to elude all tokens of gratitude, implied a sort of disdain for those ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... insulting passion, when the appearance of the student interrupted him, and enabled her to make her escape. She had forborne to mention to her father the persecution which she suffered; she wished to spare him unavailing anxiety and distress, and had determined to confine herself more rigorously to the house; though it appeared that even here she had not been ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... made way with ourselves in an access of emotional insanity, supposed to have been induced by unavailing flat-hunting," he suggested. She fell in with the notion. "I'm beginning to feel crazy. But I don't want you to lose your head, Basil. And I don't want you to sentimentalize any of the things you see in New York. I think you were disposed to do it in that street we drove through. I don't believe ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... half-imbedded in sand and water, there was a mouldering log, which he chanced to know was hollow beneath. He had but just time to slip into this retreat, when the baffled Indians came up. They actually walked over the log in their unavailing search for him. Here he remained until night, when he stole from his hiding-place, and in safety reached Fort Montgomery, which was distant about two miles ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... has been caused by the announcement that bees are entirely without winter stocks. We have pleasure in recording a gallant but unavailing attempt to remedy the situation on the part of two dear old ladies, who thought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... unavailing, then and always thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had passed through the neighbouring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, except in the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... city both by sea and land. His attacks were vigorous and unremitting, and were directed especially against the quarter of Achradina[33] from the side of the sea; but, though he brought many powerful military engines against the walls, these were rendered wholly unavailing by the superior skill and science of Archimedes, which were employed on the side of the besieged. All the efforts of the assailants were baffled; and the Roman soldiers were inspired with so great a dread of ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... nasal twang, and drawling accent, so disguises what you do say, that nothing but a miracle could make you understood. The screams, the grimaces, the gestures which these people exhibit, during their unavailing efforts to render themselves understood, appear inexpressibly ludicrous to the indifferent spectator, and their perseverance is still more extraordinary, since it rarely happens that their ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... All unavailing is the prayer— The proud ones pass us by; Their chariots roll, their torches glare Cold ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various

... look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action will come thronging back upon thy memory and knocking dolefully at thy soul: then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... of roaring waters!—at last, suddenly, over a large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, and strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; but the man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he realised that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked without due warrant. "I didn't know, or I wouldn't have asked it," he said in a low ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to Demosthenes. They contended that it was futile to resist the advance of the Macedonian power. Demosthenes went at the head of an embassy to the Peloponnesian states which had taken sides with Philip, but his efforts to dissuade them from this suicidal policy were unavailing. What he wanted was a union of all Greeks against the common enemy, who was bent on robbing them of their liberty. He gathered, at length, a strong party about him at Athens. The overtures of peace from Philip, who ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... been, from time to time, protests, unavailing however, against the tyranny of the opera-managers. In his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre" (1828), Mr. Ebers publishes the remonstrance of a gentleman refused admission to the opera on the score of his imperfect costume, much ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... already covered the half of our bodies. The deep stupor of the soldiers and sailors instantly changed to despair. All saw their inevitable destruction, and expressed by their moans the dark thoughts which brooded in their minds. Our words were at first unavailing to quiet their fears, which we participated with them, but which a greater strength of mind enabled us to dissemble. At last, an unmoved countenance, and our proffered consolations, quieted them by degrees, but could not entirely dissipate the terror ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... should prevail. Many remonstrances had been sent to the British government against the reduction or abolition of the duty on foreign timber which came into competition with the colonial product, but these remonstrances proved wholly unavailing, and it was seriously believed that the colonial timber trade would be destroyed. This led to the annexation movement of 1848, which affected all the provinces, while it also caused the formation of organizations pledged to resist the free trade movement. Tilley was in sympathy with these efforts ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... Before long there were two lines of straggling flight, running parallel with each other at a distance of perhaps one hundred yards, and both storming toward the still unseen rivulet. A few arrows were thrown; four or five unavailing shots were fired in return; the hiss of shaft and ping of ball crossed each other in air; but no serious and effective fight commenced or could commence. Both parties, guided and mastered by their lolling beasts, almost without conflict ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... properly speaking, either more or less so. If a piece of art can take us with its own beauty, there is no point in superimposing upon it shades of sentiment; if it cannot so charm, all the rose-colored lights of this kind of appreciative criticism are unavailing. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands solace and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings it can endure no employment not connected with those sufferings. Forcibly to turn away our attention to other subjects is a painful and in general an unavailing effort. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... and twisting, protruded from a rent in a dilapidated dilly-bag. It had done so with infinite feebleness for many an hour in unavailing protest against the woes and weight of life, for faint scratch smeared with blood denoted the friction of tender skin against the broken edges of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... enduring is the monument I've reared,— Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing; And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared, Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing! ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field

... penance, probably, even as James of Scotland wore the iron belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost, Whist and Erycina never forgive. The beautiful bird that might then have been limed and tamed shook her wings and flew away exultingly: far up in air the unlucky fowler may still sometimes hear her clear ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... an unbroken friendship. We love our friends, but ofttimes we lose them in proportion to our affection. The sacrifices made for others are not infrequently met by envy, ingratitude, and enmity, which smite the heart and threaten to paralyze its beneficence. The unavailing tear is shed both for ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... so disagreeable and so disgusting that, until I have certain proof that the present ministers are disposed to act in another manner, I cannot possibly consent to renew my services where, under such circumstances, they would be wholly unavailing to the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... Bishop Hedding hopes to visit us at our approaching Conference. Rev. R. Newton, of England, will not visit Canada. Mr. —— has told him that it was not worth while to go to Canada; and all that can be said to induce him to come is unavailing. We in Canada are not worth ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... work to come. Without these exercises, all of which are set to inspiring music, muscles employed in dancing would remain taut or soft and not respond properly, the pupil would quickly tire, and the attempt to dance become an unavailing effort. With the limbering and stretching course, time is saved in preparing the student for the lessons to come, and the time necessary for the training and development of a dancer is much shortened from ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... was pale with rage. He felt angry enough to tear Phil to pieces, but his rage was unavailing. He had a wholesome fear of the police, and the doctor's threat was effectual. He turned away, though with reluctance, and Phil breathed more freely. Pietro communicated his information to the padrone, and ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... listen to the bubling cry of their agony, as they sank to their chins in the water, there to remain for ever, beholding and regretting the rewards enjoyed by the good, and doomed to struggle, till the stars shall cease to shine, in unavailing endeavours to reach the blissful island. They beheld the lake thick and black with the heads of the unhappy swimmers, as the surface of the Great Bear Lake is dotted in summer with the wild fowl that seek subsistence in ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... Austria must rest all the guilt of that awful tragedy. Napoleon had done every thing he could do to stop the effusion of blood. He had sacrificed the instincts of pride, in pleading with a haughty foe for peace. His plea was unavailing. Three hundred thousand men were marching upon France to force upon her a detested King. It was not the duty of France to submit to such dictation. Drawing the sword in self-defense, Napoleon fought and conquered. ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott



Words linked to "Unavailing" :   useless, futile, otiose



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org