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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Worthless 🛌 A useless person
good-for-naught

good-for-naught

9.9
A person who does little work and is not useful
  • noun
  • /ˈɡʊd fɔr nɔt/
  • Offensive
translation icon : buen para nada
  • Everyone in the village considered him a good-for-naught who never contributed to anything.

Examples

  • " Where's that good-for-naught child when she's wanted?

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The old man constantly complained about the good-for-naught youth who wasted their lives.

  • At work, she felt surrounded by good-for-naught colleagues who never took their responsibilities seriously.

Synonyms

good-for-nothing
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
16 7.1

A person who is lazy and does nothing useful

is the same meaning but a different written form
ne'er-do-well
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
5 9.9

A person who is lazy, irresponsible, and does not try to succeed

focuses on current worthlessness rather than future failure
nought
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
3 9.9

A person who is unimportant and ignored

means someone viewed as worthless now, not just an archaic nobody term
no-account
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
2 8.9

A person who does not keep a steady job

is the same sense expressed with another common negative label
goof-off
vsgood-for-naught
  • Informal
2 8.6

A person who avoids work and wastes time

describes someone regarded as without value rather than only avoiding tasks
waste of skin
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
1 9.9

A person seen as having no value or use

is a milder general negative term rather than a severe insult
no-count
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
1 8.9

A person or thing that others see as worthless

is used specifically for a person rather than general things
goldbrick
vsgood-for-naught
  • Offensive
1 9.6

A person who avoids work by pretending to be busy

refers to general uselessness rather than deliberate deception at work

Antonyms

asset
770 3.5

A useful quality, skill, or person that helps someone succeed

How Useful

asset
770 3.5
worker
600 1.0
good-for-naught
  • Offensive
9.9
loafer
  • Offensive
5 5.8
dead weight
  • Offensive
22 4.4

Surface Forms

good-for-naught singular
good-for-naughts plural

Morphology

good-for-naught = good + naught (semi-transparent) = for + good + naught

As a noun phrase the compound literally means 'one who is good for nothing'; the structure is clear but the archaic 'naught' and idiomatic sense reduce full transparency. [Postprocessing: moved 'for' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

The noun good-for-naught comes from the same idea, 'good for nothing', with naught meaning 'nothing' (the same as nothing). So, a good-for-naught is a person people think is useless or lazy.