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Jul 8, 2004

This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
tchotchke
eidetic
mimesis
bootless
malarkey

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bootless

adjective: Useless; unsuccessful, unprofitable.

From Old English botleas, from Old English bot (advantage) + less, from Old English laes (without).

"Unfortunately, even the persistent efforts made by the Government and the RBI over the last decade to improve the flow of institutional credit to this sector have proved bootless."
Ad-hocism Continues; Businessline (Chennai, India); Sep 4, 2000.

"In 1981 came 'Philosophical Explanations', which contains a famous chapter asking a seemingly bootless question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'"
Robert Nozick; Books And Arts: Not All Words Need Be Last Words; The Economist (London, UK); Feb 2, 2002.

See more usage examples of bootless in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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