To make this small, perhaps futile gesture, to try to put things right somehow.

And to prevent him from making one last futile gesture.

It is a small, largely futile gesture, but one that almost everyone makes.

I saw Del make the same futile gestures, and then she stood very still.

It was a futile gesture, but one that had to be made.

How far were we willing to go to act out what was, in the end, nothing but a futile gesture?

But it wouldn't happen - her father was not a man for futile gestures.

I brought my hands up to stop the sword, a futile gesture.

On its face, the resolution may seem a futile gesture.

But he wondered whether it would be a futile gesture on his part.