Boondoggle is a noun that refers to a wasteful or impractical project.

The exact origin of our word of the day isn’t clear, but it was initially used by boy scouts to refer to a braided cord used as a neckerchief slide. It’s not known how the word came to have its other meaning, but it is also used to refer to a project that costs lots of money, but has little or no value.

I had a feeling the office recreation room would wind up being a boondoggle. Talk about wasteful! Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to pay for an outdated karaoke machine and a ping-pong table nobody uses.