How to Use ineffectual in a Sentence

ineffectual

adjective

• An odd shifting of scale is present in the oversized head and the tiny ineffectual hand.
  — Dallas News, 23 June 2022
• But, as has been the case in the last three elections here, Beijing’s ploys were ineffectual.
  — Eryk Michael Smith, Fox News, 4 May 2024
• But amid the ineffectual chaos, there is now a push for order.
  — New York Times, 29 Dec. 2021
• Wind chills in the 30s much of the day were perhaps somewhat offset by the abundant, if rather ineffectual, sun.
  — Ian Livingston, Washington Post, 2 Jan. 2024
• And when schools don’t act — or when their efforts to root out abuse are ineffectual — justice is not served.
  — Washington Post, 1 May 2017
• One girl served as the Supreme Leader, another as the ineffectual President, and the rest of the class united against them.
  — Azadeh Moaveni, The New Yorker, 7 Aug. 2023
• In her voice, the inner lives of Korvette’s seething, ineffectual men come bubbling to the surface.
  — Dan Piepenbring, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2017
• Sounds like something Logan Roy would say to his ineffectual sons in the middle of a hostile takeover.
  — Zoe Guy, Vulture, 30 Apr. 2024
• While most are in favor of Musk selling, some find the move ineffectual—at least from a tax perspective.
  — Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz, 8 Nov. 2021
• So does this mean that the writerly anti-Trump right is ineffectual?
  — E.j. Dionne Jr., The Mercury News, 1 June 2017
• The response from the rest of society to this predicament has ranged from callous to ineffectual.
  — J.c. Pan, The New Republic, 17 Apr. 2020
• To dismiss Trump as ineffectual or anomalous is to miss the broader point.
  — Chris Cillizza, CNN, 31 May 2017
• Weak, ineffectual, riddled by inflation, and a work force that won't go back to work.
  — ABC News, 12 Dec. 2021
• The hapless Phils did know when to sell high on him, moving him to the Cubs for $65K and a hodgepodge of relatively ineffectual players at the end of the season.
  — Tony Blengino, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2022
• But what was true of Afghanistan, however ineffectual many of our efforts there were, isn't true here.
  — W. James Antle Iii, The Week, 17 Mar. 2022
• In the case of the first forum, Reddit’s crackdown was too little, too late; in the case of the second, the platform’s response was more timely but still ineffectual.
  — The New Yorker, 19 May 2022
• After ineffectual attempts to offer aid, Adam flees the scene, leaving the other boy to die on the pavement.
  — oregonlive, 1 Dec. 2020
• The fact-finding commission became more and more ineffectual as the months dragged on.
  — Krithika Varagur, Foreign Affairs, 20 Dec. 2022
• The central bank's efforts to cushion the blow might not be merely ineffectual.
  — Chris Isidore, CNN, 27 Aug. 2019
• The central bank’s efforts to cushion the blow might not be merely ineffectual.
  — Washington Post, 30 Aug. 2019
• If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place?
  — Douglas Perry, OregonLive.com, 18 Jan. 2018
• Canada was awarded a penalty kick, Jessie Fleming converted it and a sense of doom fell over the ineffectual U.S. team.
  — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, 2 Aug. 2021
• Applying the same old tools to a very new situation, even though those tools have been proven ineffectual.
  — Shirin Ghaffary, Recode, 21 Nov. 2018
• So far, the official response has been ineffectual, and many Mongolians have begun to see it through a wider lens.
  — Beth Gardiner, National Geographic, 26 Mar. 2019
• The irony here checks out: Casaubon, not unlike so many of Franzen’s male characters, is self-righteous, pompous, largely ineffectual.
  — Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2021
• In Jackson’s case, Lue pulled the veteran point guard after only 3 minutes and 21 seconds of ineffectual play in the first half.
  — Andrew Greif, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2020
• In the third period, Utah’s ball movement and multiple actions dried up, and the team settled for ineffectual tires from deep.
  — Eric Walden, The Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Apr. 2022
• Now the playing field has spread into a far more subjective realm, where the rules are uncertain, the referees ineffectual, and whirl is king.
  — Los Angeles Magazine, 19 Dec. 2017
• But because of its own dysfunction—and, in no small measure, Israeli policies—the PA has become weak and ineffectual.
  — Aaron David Miller, Foreign Affairs, 22 Dec. 2023
• He’s first pictured silently brooding in his garden, and the overall impression of him is an amoral yet ineffectual leader, long past his prime.
  — Nate Jones, Vulture, 1 Mar. 2024

Last Updated: 5 Dec 2024