otiose

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From Latin ōtiōsus (“idle”), from ōtium (“ease”).

Unable to do anything, he said: ‘What a villanous set are these, who have untied their dogs, and tied up the stones!’”—Here we have a jest, at the recital of which, in the 14th century, “grave and otiose” Easterns wagged their beards and shook their portly sides, finding its way, three centuries later, to London taverns, where Taylor probably heard it told amidst the clinking of cans and fragrant clouds blown from pipes of Trinidado! — The Bakhtyār Nāma: A Persian Romance, Unknown

pointless, purposeless, senseless, superfluous, wasted

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