What's the difference between piddling and useless?

Piddling


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Piddle
  • (a.) Trifling; trivial; frivolous; paltry; -- applied to persons and things.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But I'd be piddling myself laughing and couldn't get myself together, meaning there were many retakes.
  • (2) A pugnacious Nick Clegg really got the Remain side going when he accused outers of behaving as if Britain was just “a piddling little island”, always being bullied by Brussels.
  • (3) Why would she give up her cosy life as a columnist and novelist working from home in Notting Hill to be editor of a title she described in the documentary as "a piddling magazine no one cares about or buys"?
  • (4) Hunt is locked into a no-win confrontation about a piddling amount of cash that – if the ballot that goes out tomorrow supports strike action, as it looks as if it will – could cost hundreds of lives.
  • (5) We do the best we can all day, every day to produce great product on piddling budgets and they call that success.
  • (6) That the Thames triumphed over competition from the mighty Amazon and idyllic rural waterways such as the Piddle in Dorset, can be explained by the prize's focus on restored and well-managed rivers.
  • (7) Aside from that, we see only two solutions: grab our culture by the lapels and convince everyone it’s fine to sit down for five piddling little minutes to have a coffee, or convince people to go down the reusable route.
  • (8) But the culture budget is pretty piddling anyway and transport argues that it is supposed to deliver a lot of the infrastructure spending that the coalition is now committed to increasing.
  • (9) Later she says of the title: "In the real world this is a piddling little magazine that nobody cares about.
  • (10) "The Piddle and the Amazon don't have those environmental pressures – the sewage, the industry."

Useless


Definition:

  • (a.) Having, or being of, no use; unserviceable; producing no good end; answering no valuable purpose; not advancing the end proposed; unprofitable; ineffectual; as, a useless garment; useless pity.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Theoretical findings on sterilization and disinfection measures are useless for the dental practice if their efficiency is put into question due to insufficient consideration of the special conditions of dental treatment.
  • (2) It’s useless if we try and fight with them through force, so we try and fight with them through humour.” “There is a saying that laughing is the best form of medicine.
  • (3) It also seems to be a bit useless as a way of gathering intelligence.
  • (4) It is concluded that the femoral stem should be as thick as possible and that the collar of the prosthesis is useless.
  • (5) The clorus water disinfecting conventional methods by many reasons are useless, even in urbanized cities.
  • (6) By now seemingly every print and online outlet has had a crack at explaining why the Sunday shows are so phenomenally useless.
  • (7) He added: "Why on earth is this useless Goverment pandering to Puffs?
  • (8) It’s great that the new Star Wars film is more diverse , with John Boyega and Daisy Ridley in significant roles; I am pleased to see everyone on #BoycottStarWarsVII gnash and whine uselessly.
  • (9) Inappropriate, useless and potentially harmful surgical diagnostic procedures are also avoided.
  • (10) However, under normal working conditions, taking into account the period of time which inevitably elapses between the patient feeling pain in the kidney and his reaching the Emergency Department and the necessary examinations being carried out which enable the correct diagnosis to be made, the number of hours which have passed make attempts at conservative surgery completely useless.
  • (11) However one should not ask for the impossible of the treatment of male infertility since the most optimal seminal analysis result is useless in the presence of a monophysic menstrual cycle in the partner.
  • (12) The endoscopic retrograde cholangiography is of greatest practical significance for the differential diagnosis of the cholestatic icterus: non-obstructed bile ducts exclude an extrahepatic icterus and render a laparotomy useless.
  • (13) If you have a regulator behaving this uselessly, I suspect MPs will start saying this is not regulation," he said.
  • (14) The importance of a diagnosis before surgery by cytopunction and drill-biopsy has to be emphasized, to prevent an useless mastectomy.
  • (15) In conclusion, excepted for pituitary deficiency, basal plasma TSH (IRMA) levels are accurate and sufficient in the evaluation of the thyroid function and make the TRH-test useless.
  • (16) (4) The annual vaccination campaigns since 1970 against FMD were useless because most of the primary outbreaks of FMD since then can be traced to the production or the application of vaccines.
  • (17) A hepatic lesion regarded as useless for the ultimate diagnosis was present in 16 cases (14.5 per cent).
  • (18) Talking this week to several, I heard the same story of exorbitant fees and shocking interest rates throttling real production, while Adair Turner's "socially useless" financial products attract limitless bubble credit.
  • (19) Clinical evaluation and laboratory tests are useless.
  • (20) The Chinese government is depicted as benevolent, while the US government manages to be both sinister and useless – typified by the black-clad CIA operatives, one of whom gets beaten up by a Chinese character.