Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in the "New Republic") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin, otherwise pointless.

" "And Mademoiselle Alice?" "Who knows?" was the somewhat pointless reply.

'Ah!' said he, after a few pointless remarks, 'your friend is over here on business, eh?

dull, dull as ditch water; unentertaining, uninteresting, flat, dry as dust; unfunny, unlively^, logy [U.S.]; unimaginative; insulse^; dry as dust; prosy, prosing, prosaic; matter of fact, commonplace, pedestrian, pointless; weary stale flat and unprofitable

Hence the protracted conversations are as a rule amazingly windy and pointless, as the protracted descriptions are amazingly useless and tedious.

The sneer is pointless, and Christian moralists have spontaneously drawn attention to the fact.

" After some rather pointless and disjointed remarks from the curates, a sound came from the corner near the door.

The smiling Infant in his Hand shall take The crested Basilisk and speckled Snake; Pleas'd, the green Lustre of the Scales survey, And with their forky Tongue and pointless Sting shall play.

A small and threadbare sect of "liberals," as they call themselves,men in whom want of skill, industry, and thrift has produced the usual results,have erected an altar to Thomas Paine, and, on the anniversary of his birth, go through with a pointless celebration, which passes unnoticed, unless in an out-of-the-way corner of some newspaper.

"These gentry form a sort of cross between the Theodorian breed of novel and the Wardishthe extravagantly overratedthe heavy, imbecile, pointless, but still well-written, sensible, and, we may even add, not disagreeable, Tremaine and De Vere.

He seemed to be a pointless sort of man, apparently destitute of any keen sense of humour; a spectacled, sallow, sombre man, who would have been an ornament to a first-class undertaker's business.

So much for the design, which is far more congenial to our feelings than the thousand and one sonnets, pointless epigrams, laments, and monodies, which are usually showered from crimson and gold envelopes at this dull season of the year.

In many cases the puns proved quite untranslatable; while the poems, being parodies on well-known English pieces, would have been pointless on the other side of the Channel.

It always deals with persons of rank and birth, and, except for the exalted nature of the subject itself, is, as far as I can see, absolutely pointless.

They conversed for hours and hours about dairying, interspersed with pointless anecdotes of the man who had lived there before us.

This parodyand it is certainly neither pointless nor unskilfulchiefly deals with the poet's fantastic prologue.

This last variation of his daughter's plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement.

Mr. Haseman drags it in continually when its use is either pointless and redundant or else serves purely to darken wisdom.

Athenaeus informs us that some of these women "had a great opinion of themselves, paying attention to education and spending a part of their time on literature; so that they were very ready with their rejoinders and replies;" but the specimens he gives of these rejoinders and replies consist chiefly of obscene jokes, cheap puns on names or pointless witticisms.

After these considerations it will not surprise us to find that the thinking man can easily be distinguished from the book-philosopher by his marked earnestness, directness, and originality, the personal conviction of all his thoughts and expressions: the book-philosopher, on the other hand, has everything second-hand; his ideas are like a collection of old rags obtained anyhow; he is dull and pointless, resembling a copy of a copy.

But there are occasions when the keenest ridicule is pointless; when the mind, armed by truth and elevated by humanity, rejects its insidious effortsand, absorbed by more laudable feelings, despises even the smile of contempt.

The conversation continued in that tongue through such pointless commercial gossip as this: "So the brig Equinox is aground at the head of the Passes," said M. Grandissime.

While I, in the uselessness of my round, white youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless "yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day!

Jokes are of three kindsplain, illustrated and pointless.

One can almost hear the stumbling, pointless observations, almost see the imploring looks cast, from among the infinitely attentive company, towards the tutor, and the pink ears growing still more pink.