hapless

hapless
adjective
hap·;less ;ha-pl;s
Synonyms of hapless
: 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 means exactly what you'd expect it to mean: "without hap"—hap being another word for fortune or luck. Hap comes from the Old Norse word for "good luck," which is also the source of 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"). Hapless is often imbued with a touch of pity, humor, or both for those to whom it refers, as in "a hapless goalie who couldn't block a shot to save his life."

Synonyms
hard-luck
ill-fated
ill-starred
jinxed
luckless
snakebit
snakebitten
star-crossed
unfortunate
unhappy
unlucky
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
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
The Soviet Union covered its mistake by renaming the spacecraft: instead of becoming one of the Venera missions to Venus, the hapless spacecraft was designed Kosmos, the USSR’s catchall for its spacecraft in Earth orbit.
—Kiona N. Smith, Forbes.com, 7 May 2025
But all that has only fortified a character who went from hapless brother-in-law to inarguably the most evolved one of the bunch.
—Mikey O'Connell, HollywoodReporter, 20 Apr. 2025
More on Brad Holland Brad Holland, 81, Dies; His Subversive Art Reinvented Illustration April 13, 2025 This particular assignment was to illustrate an essay by P.G. Wodehouse, the British author and humorist who created Jeeves, the consummate butler to the hapless Bertie Wooster.
—Penelope Green, New York Times, 14 Apr. 2025
The problem for the hapless Rockies was that the Reds hit three homers to the Rockies’ two.
—Patrick Saunders, Denver Post, 26 Apr. 2025