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# unhelpful

«unhelpful» in Mova's school dictionary: **not helping, or making a problem or a situation harder** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective

### meaning for a pupil

Unhelpful means not helping, or making a problem or a situation harder. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

In everyday life and school, unhelpful behaviour or comments do not help others; teachers may say «that's unhelpful» about a rude remark. In writing, unhelpful instructions are unclear. Phrases: «unhelpful comment», «not unhelpful», «it is unhelpful to».

### examples

- Shouting at your partner is unhelpful. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x1)
- The map was unhelpful because it had no street names. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x2)
- The shop assistant was unhelpful and rude. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x3)
- It's unhelpful to laugh when someone makes a mistake. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x4)
- His unhelpful advice made things worse. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x5)
- Saying «just do it» was unhelpful. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/#x6)

### note

Adjective; opposite «helpful». Adverb «unhelpfully». Spelt with one l at the end (-ful).

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «unhelpful» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unhelpful/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.