How to Use hapless in a Sentence

hapless

adjective
  • She plays the hapless heroine who is unlucky in love.
  • That costs him — and his hapless partners — tons of points.
    Frank Stewart, The Mercury News, 26 July 2024
  • In no way does this mean that Kyle Shanahan and Co. can overlook a hapless Detroit team on the road.
    Vincent Frank, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2021
  • Cody Bellinger goes from hapless to heroic in Dodgers’ Game 2 victory over Giants.
    Seth Liss, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2021
  • Still another, meanwhile, attempts to frame the hapless ambulance orderlies who took Grzegorz to hospital as his killers.
    Guy Lodge, Variety, 10 Sep. 2021
  • For some reason, the Nationals are underdogs against the visiting, hapless Marlins.
    BostonGlobe.com, 6 Sep. 2021
  • All the Colts had to do to make the playoffs was beat the hapless 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars.
    Matthew Vantryon, The Indianapolis Star, 9 Jan. 2022
  • What if the Bengals lose Sunday in Jersey to the hapless Jets?
    Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 26 Oct. 2021
  • Break the curse, beat a hapless Jacksonville team in the Florida sun and the Colts are headed to the playoffs.
    Joel A. Erickson, The Indianapolis Star, 8 Jan. 2022
  • She’s accompanied by the very last dragon in the world: the hapless but kind Sisu.
    The Editors, Outside Online, 23 Dec. 2021
  • Charlie Winshaw, the hapless new face of the franchise.
    Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 10 Dec. 2021
  • The Chargers are not the hapless Jets, of course, but the Chargers do have the league’s worst run defense by giving up 162.5 yards per game.
    Matt Youmans, Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Meanwhile, Beau’s hapless lawyer is thrown from his balcony and smashed against the rocks below.
    Vulture, 13 June 2023
  • The hapless guard also got a tongue-lashing from my mother.
    Melanie Stetson Freeman, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 May 2023
  • Dismantling the hapless Colts, who fired coach Frank Reich the very next day, may not be a promise of more.
    Tara Sullivan, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard and Emmanuelle Seigner are just a few of the hapless adults caught in their web.
    Matt Donnelly, Variety, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Stranger Things Season 4 brought love, loss, and gore for our hapless Hawkins heroes.
    Milan Polk, Men's Health, 7 July 2022
  • But this isn’t a column about a hapless husband who falls apart when he’s left to his own devices.
    John Kelly, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2022
  • When running back Leonard Fournette punched in the next score, tying the game 27-27, the Bucs had come all the way back and the Rams looked utterly hapless.
    Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 23 Jan. 2022
  • Over the weekend against the ill-fitting and hapless Los Angeles Lakers, the Cavs flipped the proverbial switch.
    Chris Fedor, cleveland, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Hamm’s version is less cruel and more hapless than Chase’s.
    Eliana Dockterman, Time, 30 Sep. 2022
  • This week, the G-Men get a hapless Patriots offense at home that have scored 17-or-fewer points in eight of the last nine games.
    Eddie Brown, San Diego Union-Tribune, 21 Nov. 2023
  • At times, Rebecca, who managed the bar in the show, appeared to be a hapless and gold-digging mess.
    Andrew Dalton and Alicia Rancilio, BostonGlobe.com, 5 Dec. 2022
  • Just after the hour mark, Rodrygo ran deep from near the halfway line to fire the fourth past a hapless Paulo Gazzaniga.
    Tom Sanderson, Forbes, 10 Feb. 2024
  • As the hapless target, Strong makes the most of his reserved character by seeming to do not much at all.
    Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 Sep. 2023
  • That put the Spurs ahead by 20 over heretofore hapless Oklahoma City.
    Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 30 Nov. 2022
  • The Orioles comfortably won the first two games of their series with the hapless Chicago White Sox thanks to a bevy of late scoring.
    Nathan Ruiz, Baltimore Sun, 30 Aug. 2023
  • There’s Zion, a mini-fridge on wheels, spinning through a hapless defense.
    Jeff McDonald, San Antonio Express-News, 1 Dec. 2022
  • The Hoosiers showed their strength, at one point building a 17-point first-half lead against a defensively hapless Iowa team.
    Zach Osterman, The Indianapolis Star, 1 Feb. 2024
  • Governments proved hapless at addressing the resulting stagflation, a stagnant economy alongside skyrocketing inflation.
    Alan Green / Made By History, TIME, 25 June 2024

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

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