: marked by, relating to, or experiencing bad luck or difficulty
another loss for the team's hard-luck pitcher
hard-luck stories

Examples of hard-luck in a Sentence

a hard-luck ball club that never could get the breaks it needed
Recent Examples on the Web Ticketed, booted, towed — there are a million hard-luck parking enforcement stories in the naked city. Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2024 His latest album, 2023’s Twenty on High, is a revelatory collection of hard-luck stories and working-class resilience. Garret K. Woodward, Rolling Stone, 30 July 2024 The rise from an impoverished, dysfunctional upbringing in hard-luck Appalachia to Yale Law School and the U.S. Senate is truly the stuff of political myth-making. Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2024 The latest delay was a familiar setback for the hard-luck Starliner, which has suffered a steady stream of frustrating complications since an initial unpiloted test flight in 2019 was derailed by software problems and communications glitches. William Harwood, CBS News, 21 May 2024 Head-to-head with Donald Trump Now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended his hard-luck campaign just before Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, Haley will be going head-to-head with her former boss on Tuesday in the Granite State. USA TODAY, 22 Jan. 2024 Horan was the hard-luck shooter of the game, denied multiple times by Musovic and clanking another header off the crossbar. Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Aug. 2023 And Rafael Devers has had kind of a hard-luck year, even as he’s been productive. Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 14 July 2023 Williams came up short in her effort, a hard-luck, 6-4, 6-3 loss to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in which Williams aggravated an injured right knee early in the match. Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 3 July 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hard-luck.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1890, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hard-luck was in 1890

Dictionary Entries Near hard-luck

Cite this Entry

“Hard-luck.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hard-luck. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Kids Definition

hard-luck

adjective
ˈhärd-ˌlək
: marked by, relating to, or experiencing bad luck
hard-luck stories
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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