OTIOSE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Otiose

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Otiose

adjective

Serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being. Synonyms: pointless, purposeless, senseless, superfluous, wasted. "Advice is wasted words" , "A pointless remark" , "A life essentially purposeless" , "Senseless violence"

Producing no result or effect. Synonyms: futile, ineffectual, unavailing. "The therapy was ineffectual" , "An otiose undertaking" , "An unavailing attempt"

Disinclined to work or exertion. Synonyms: faineant, indolent, lazy, slothful, work-shy. "An indolent hanger-on" , "Too lazy to wash the dishes" , "Shiftless idle youth" , "Slothful employees" , "The unemployed are not necessarily work-shy"

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Etymology of 'Otiose'

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"Otiose" Quotes from Famous Books

... reference. Such volumes as have reached me contain a surprising medley: the whole details of his employment in the Northern Lights and his general practice; the whole biography of an enthusiastic engineer. Much of it is useful and curious; much merely otiose; and much can only be described as an attempt to impart that which cannot be imparted in words. Of such are his repeated and heroic descriptions of reefs; monuments of misdirected literary energy, which leave upon the ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... drama belongs primarily to this, that, or the other of the categories is as otiose as the discussion whether the hen or the egg came first. No play lives that does not belong to the second and third category, and it cannot be put upon the boards without some reliance upon the first. On the other hand, whatever may be the belief of individual dramatists, it is doubtful ...

— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

Words linked to "Otiose" : idle, useless, worthless