Noun

disuse, obsolescence (for example, the state of a custom that is no longer observed nor practised)

*1819, Sir Walter Scott, Bride of Lammermoor

*:... we of the house of Ravenswood do our endeavour in keeping up, by all just and lawful exertion of our baronial authority, that due and fitting connexion betwixt superior and vassal, which is in some danger of falling into desuetude , owing to the general license and misrule of these present unhappy times.

Noun

(en-noun)

(uncountable) The quality of being futile or useless.

His taking the bar exam for a third time was pure futility .

(countable) Something, especially an act, that is futile.

*{{quote-book, year=1803, author=Thomas Jefferson, title=Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him, his sophisms, futilities , and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? }}

*1843 , '', book 3, chapter XIII, ''Democracy

No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shewn. […] No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities , bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like?

*{{quote-book, year=1919, author=F. Scott Fitzgerald, title=This Side of Paradise, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads. }}

* {{quote-news, year=2009, date=September 5, author=Robert Clark, title=Exhibition preview: Goya: Fantasies, Follies And Disasters, Manchester, work=Guardian citation

, passage=There are moments of profound existential angst, howls of despair at the absurd futilities of war and a sneering disgust at the soul-destroying wastage of human potential. }}

(uncountable) Unimportance.