Participants said continued use of the present land law was painfully inadequate and likely to result in increasing conflict.

Slicing the deficit by a mere $30 billion or so, as some have proposed, looks painfully inadequate to stem the buildup of debt.

The borrowed life in her blood was painfully inadequate.

In such politicized times, it was a painfully inadequate pose.

With the best intentions she represents his view of a despoiled world in language painfully inadequate, sometimes all too close to parody: "Everything gone.

His eyes were painfully inadequate to the task.

A 700-word column is painfully inadequate to give Wilkins a thorough hearing.

Unlike the village schools of Somerset 40 years ago, it seems that our methods of dealing with the problem are painfully inadequate.

Vic went back to the computer, but his efforts at wing removal were painfully inadequate to satisfy him.

The following sickness convulsed the big body, weakened the feeble pulse yet further, and produced only a painfully inadequate result.