WORTHLESSNESS Synonyms: 88 Similar and Opposite Words

worthlessness

noun

as in valuelessness

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Dissimilar Words

as in inferiority

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of worthlessness He is simultaneously convinced of his own worthlessness and angry with the world for failing to recognize his unlimited potential. — Big Think, 29 Apr. 2026 Johnson said depression often manifests as persistent negative self-perception, hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness and social withdrawal. — Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, FOXNews.com, 8 Mar. 2026 Kitty, whose worldly possessions fit into two plastic bags, is seen repeatedly in the same clothes, and bourgeois hostility to her presence in Beth’s middle-class neighborhood compounds her feelings of worthlessness. — Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 5 Feb. 2026 Feeling Worthless or Guilty Many people with depression grapple with feelings of worthlessness. — Sarah Bence, Verywell Health, 15 Dec. 2025 Like regular depression, SAD can cause negative feelings like hopelessness, worthlessness, irritability, and guilt; fatigue or reduced energy; a loss of interest in hobbies and activities; and even physical aches and pains (including headaches, cramps, and digestive problems). — Maggie O'Neill, SELF, 20 Oct. 2025 The feelings of postpartum depression — despair, guilt, shame and worthlessness — began creeping in. — Alyssa Goldberg, USA Today, 3 Sep. 2025 As many as one in eight women in the United States will experience postpartum depression, which can manifest in feelings such as anger, social withdrawal, and worthlessness, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research. — Jessica Zucker, Condé Nast Traveler, 9 Apr. 2021

Recent Examples of Synonyms for worthlessness

Noun

However, at the quantum level, emptiness is filled with unwanted noise.

— Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 22 Aug. 2026
The problem isn’t the characterization, since the surgeon is extremely well drawn and Văncică’s performance picks up on both the overall inner emptiness and the yearning for something more.

— Jay Weissberg, Variety, 14 Aug. 2026

Definition of emptiness

Noun

The rooms were part of Kusama’s ongoing exploration of self-obliteration and her career-long ambition to create work that provokes a keen awareness of both one’s individual insignificance and place in the wider cosmic system.

— Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2026
Artist Meredith Reynolds believed Platner’s past paled into insignificance when compared with his opponents.

— David Millward, The Washington Examiner, 7 June 2026

Definition of insignificance

Noun

On one side, a satanic figure named Randall Flagg who gathers his forces of badness to Las Vegas; on the other, the good guys, led by 108-year-old Mother Abigail in, of all places, Boulder.

— Barbara Ellis, Denver Post, 15 Jan. 2026
The show premiered over Thanksgiving weekend, when people were tired and full and bored (and probably also horny), and countered our world’s unceasing badness with its world’s buoyant sweetness.

— Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 12 Jan. 2026

Definition of badness

Noun

Revising the number mid-review without support hurt bunq twice, once on adequacy and once on credibility.

— AJ Dhaliwal, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2026
For the three trackers, one is for regional transmission organization adjustment, another is for fuel adjustment and the last is resource adequacy adjustment.

— Maya Wilkins, Chicago Tribune, 25 Aug. 2026

Definition of adequacy

Noun

Today, everyone from the Economist to the New York Times has heralded the coming psychedelics renaissance, as hallucinogens begin to gain greater cultural, medical and commercial acceptability.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 29 July 2026
The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans, public education campaigns and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.

— Mike Stobbe, Fortune, 29 May 2026

Definition of acceptability

Noun

Rex Frazier, a former deputy commissioner at the California Department of Insurance, said that in the situation that the insurers find themselves, the state regulator will be looking at a company’s capital sufficiency.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2026
Since then, the case has remained in the pleading stage, where the county has challenged the sufficiency of the claims without answering them, and the child’s attorneys have revised their complaint three times.

— Bay City News, Mercury News, 1 Aug. 2026

Definition of sufficiency

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“Worthlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/worthlessness. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of worthlessness

noun

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