无用功

無用功
wúyònggōng
noun #21,593

Meanings

  1. 1 wasted effort
  2. 2 futile work
  3. 3 pointless labor
  4. 4 (physics) negative work

Examples

Nǐ zhèyàng zuò wánquán shì wúyòng gōng, gēnběn méiyǒu xiàoguǒ.
Doing it this way is completely wasted effort — it has no effect at all.
Fǎnfù xiūgǎi fǎn ér zuò le hěn duō wúyòng gōng.
The repeated revisions ended up creating a lot of pointless extra work.

Tips

usage
无用功 comes from physics (work done against or perpendicular to motion = zero net effect), but in everyday speech it means effort that yields no useful result. The phrase 无用功 (to do useless work) is a common idiom-like expression.

Stroke Order

yòng
gōng