otiose

adjective more otiose · most otiose

1. Having no effect. The most eminent jurists have not even yet decided on a satisfactory definition of piracy. […] One school holds that it is any felony committed on the High Seas. But that does little except render a separate term otiose. Moreover, it is not accepted by other schools of thought.

   Similar: futile, ineffective, pointless, bootless, barren, sterile, fruitless, gainless, idle, dry, ineffectual, inefficacious · Opposite: productive, useful, prolific, pregnant, batful, luxuriant, fertile, fruitful, thriving, yielding, yieldly, voluminous

2. Done in a careless or perfunctory manner. It may seem otiose thus to have re-examined the elements of a distant controversy. I have sought only to indicate that there are several perfectly respectable reasons why British opinion should have been so utterly bewildered between 1793 and 1783. Such an examination, even if it manages not to caus

   Similar: negligent, reckless, unthinking, careless, cursory, derelict, heedless, irregardless, irrespective, lash, lax, incautious · Opposite: careful, considered, accurate, surgical, comprehensive, solicitous, conscientious, exhaustive, fastidious, groundly, in-depth, intensive

3. Reluctant to work or to exert oneself. Pemulis, w/ aid of 150mg. of time-release Tenuate Dospan, almost danced a little post-transaction jig on his way up the steps of the otiose Cambridge bus.

   Similar: indolent, lazy, sluggish, bone-idle, fainéant, idle, inert, lackadaisical, lither, otiose, slothful, swear · Opposite: hardworking, studious, assiduous, diligent, dogged, industrious, notable, sedulous, painstaking, worksome

4. Of a person, possessing a bored indolence.

   Similar: blasé, nonplussed, unaroused, adiaphroistic, apathetic, apathistical, blithe, deaf, cool, shiftless, dispassionate, dull · Opposite: engaged, passionate, animated, ardent, avid, big [⇒ thesaurus] [on], bubbly, eager, earnest, ebullient, energetic, enthusiastic

5. Having no reason for being (raison d’être); having no point, reason, or purpose. On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before seven; and they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and consulting about brick and stone and native and hydraulic lime, and cement and sand, and all sorts of otiose details about the chimney – just what I fled from in my father’s office

   Similar: superfluous, irrelevant, pointless, beside the mark, beside the point, immaterial, impertinent, irrelative, moot, nongermane, nonpertinent, off-topic · Opposite: essential, necessary, basic, indispensable, necessar, necessitous, needed, prerequisite, required, requisite