fool's errand
Doomed to fail
A fool's errand is a task that's pointless or bound to fail—one that wastes the effort of whoever undertakes it.
The phrase often implies the person was naive to attempt it: He sent me on a fool's errand to find a part that doesn't exist.
Sometimes the errand is a deliberate prank to get someone out of the way.
- waste of timeUnproductive expenditure of hours
- dead endPassage without outlet
- going nowhere fastFutile effort despite activity
- pipe dreamUnrealistic aspiration
- wild goose chaseHopeless pursuit of nothing
chasing shadows · barking up the wrong tree · lost cause · folly · castle in the air · wishful thinking · mirage · mug's game · pie in the sky · fantasy · chasing rainbows · quixotic · tilting at windmills · ridiculousness · farce · joke · prank · absurdity
- fool's ___
- Futile taskswild goose chase, tilting at windmills, herding cats, beating dead horse, chasing rainbows
- futilefutile, useless, pointless, fruitless, vain
- Futile Effortslost causes, wild goose chase, dead end, waste of time, Sisyphean task
- waste of timeprocrastination, busywork, dawdling, dithering, goofing off
- futilityfutile, futility, in vain, pointlessness, vain
fool's errandsure thing
Guaranteed outcome or agreement
noble quest · safe bet · slam dunk · done deal · winning strategy
fool, foolish, errand, fooled, fools, fooling, foolishness, errands, foolery