hapless

adjective

hap·less ˈha-pləs

Synonyms of hapless next

: having no luck : unfortunate

tale of a hapless sailor

hapless beings caught in the grip of forces we can do little about—

W. H. Whyte

haplessly adverb

haplessness noun

Did you know?

Hapless literally means what you'd expect it to mean: "without hap"—hap being another word for fortune or luck. Hap derives from the Old Norse word for "good luck," a word that is also the source of our happen and happy. English has several words to describe those lacking good fortune, including ill-starred, ill-fated, unlucky, and luckless, a word formed in parallel to hapless by adding the suffix -less. Ill-starred suggests bringing calamity or the threat of a terrible fate ("the ill-starred year the Great Depression began"). Ill-fated refers only to being doomed ("the ill-fated voyage of the Titanic"). Unlucky and luckless usually apply to a person or thing notably or chronically unfortunate ("an unlucky slots player," "some luckless investors swindled in the deal").

Examples of hapless in a Sentence

She plays the hapless heroine who is unlucky in love. the hapless motorist had barely paid his bill and driven away from the body shop when a truck sideswiped his car

Recent Examples on the Web

These examples are automatically compiled from online sources to illustrate current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Six years later, this conceptually similar franchise — a hapless hero possessed by a wise-cracking symbiotic alien — clearly feels emboldened by the public’s embrace of Wade Wilson and his sardonic alter ego. —

Damon Wise, Deadline, 23 Oct. 2024 But, since traveling through a time warp exposed the ship to hellish chaotic forces, our hapless characters are venturing into the one thing worse than hell on Earth: hell in space. —

EW.com, 17 Oct. 2024 Our hapless salaryman protagonist wakes up to find a metal screw protruding from his cheek. —

Wilson Chapman, IndieWire, 17 Sep. 2024 The hapless Wallace and his wily hound Gromit cross paths with an errant gnome in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. —

Antonia Blyth, Deadline, 12 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for hapless