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avail
(redirected from avail nothing)

    Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Legal, Wikipedia 0.06 sec.
avail yourself of something
to use something for your own benefit. Many students avail themselves of government loan programs to help pay for college.

to no avail

without any benefit or result. The boy pushed against the door to no avail — something heavy was holding it shut.
Usage notes: sometimes used in the phrase to little avail having almost no benefit or result: Security forces tried to disperse the crowd, but to little avail.only 0.6 for 'little avail' and it shd really be its own id, not a usage note, but I've not suppressed it for now - PH, 1/02.


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? References in periodicals archive
Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing.
II. The kaleidoscopic Emerson. (Bicentennial Essays: Ralph Waldo ... by Birnbaum, Milton / Modern Age
In explaining that random efforts to root out a vice will avail nothing, but method is required, he writes that "the law does not fear the outbreak of an angry mob .
Christian Self-Mastery. (Book Review) by Nitsch, Kathline / Catholic Insight
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