"make futile" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it to describe when an action is unsuccessful in achieving its desired result. For example: "Her attempts to reason with him were met with stubborn silence, making her efforts to resolve the argument futile."
Do you think I feel completely A-OK with having to bounce, walk and make futile attempts to entertain the little demon for hours on end?
The men are camped for weeks below Monte Cassino, a fortified monastery, and make futile trips up the mountain in the rain.
By 1341 he was able to return to Scotland, but he did little as king except to make futile raids into England.
Most likely to: make futile attempts to have weighty, political discussions with the other contestants, and use his Kilroy expertise to mediate any problems in the group.
Children in the Riga ghetto played soccer, walked to school past bodies strung from gallows, and later, in Kaiserwald, heard their parents make futile plans to hide them under barracks floorboards.
And it is not just the inevitable instinct to say no to spending, but the barriers put up to debate: an ex-Treasury economist describes how civil servants two grades below the requested level would be sent into meetings to say no, to make futile any attempt to negotiate the refusal.
Japan repeatedly made futile attempts to establish diplomatic relations with Korea.
The first is of a young panda making futile but awww-inducing bids for freedom.
But simply staying in the INF Treaty and making futile protests about Russian violations wouldn't achieve anything.
They made futile jumps into midair as the bat flew by and acted like bird dogs, pointing to where the bat was hiding.
The British Dental Association has just revealed that 600,000 people have made futile appointments with GPs over dental problems in a year, at a cost to the NHS of £26m.
