ppl. a. (UN-1 10.)
1670. Dryden, Conq. Granada, III. i. I … would your unavailing Valour call, From aiding those whom Heav’n has doom’d to fall.
1728. Eliza Heywood, trans. Mme. de Gomez’s Belle A. (1732), II. 286. In hope that … I might bring him to a just Sense of his Folly, and cure a Passion so unavailing.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., l. V. 216. Their mummies were embalmed … to preserve the ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three thousand years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing.
1843. Bethune, Sc. Fireside Stor., 117. The heavy sea which was then running, rendered their efforts unavailing.
1891. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, lv. The inventiveness of cruelty which Tigellinus and Nero studied … amid the faint, unavailing remonstrances of Poppæa.
Hence Unavailingly adv.
1810. Lee, Odes Pindar, vii. 83. Approaching age serene I view, Nor unavailingly deplore The time, when I shall be no more.
1885. Law Rep., 10 P.D. 99. Every effort was unavailingly made to avoid the collision.
