avail
/əˈveɪl
/verb
1 (avail oneself of) formal Use or take advantage of (an opportunity or available resource): my daughter did not avail herself of my advice...
- There is a nature trail in the community near my home, which I avail myself of at every opportunity.
- After the refreshments, the general public were admitted to the field with between 5,000 and 6,000 availing themselves of the opportunity of being present.
- The visitors were availing themselves of the opportunity to discover the multi-faceted profile of the nation's premier organisation.
Synonyms
use, make use of, take advantage of, utilize, employ;
resort to, have recourse to, turn to, look to
2 [with object] literary Help or benefit: no amount of struggle availed Charles...
- But their wealth avails them not at all this time.
- This time around, Daffy seems to realize he's losing the game, but all of his extra caution avails him naught.
- Of course, none of this careful planning avails me in the slightest if I don't manage to actually write anything.
Synonyms
help, aid, assist, benefit, be of use to, be useful to, profit, be of advantage to, be of service to
noun (usually in phrase of/to no avail)
Use or benefit: he begged her to reconsider, but to no avail...
- My protestations about the lack of evidence of benefit in such procedures were to no avail.
- She was doing a sterling job of trying to wake him up but to no avail.
- After a few frantic phone calls to no avail, the decision to ad-lib was made.
Synonyms
in vain, without success, unsuccessfully, vainly, with no result, fruitlessly, to no purpose;
for nothing
archaic bootlessly
Phrases
avail someone nothing
Origin
Middle English: from obsolete vail 'be of use or value' (apparently on the pattern of pairs such as amount, mount), from Old French valoir, from Latin valere 'be strong, be of value'.