noun
-
evil fortune; bad luck
-
an unfortunate or disastrous event; calamity
Synonym Usage
See affliction.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of misfortune
Explanation
On a gloomy day, you may feel compelled to list your misfortunes: a broken umbrella, a broken heart, a broken toe. Misfortune means bad luck or the state of having bad luck. Break misfortune into its parts and you get mis- meaning bad and fortune meaning chance or luck. Sometimes it can feel like misfortune follows you. Picture it as a gloomy psychic named "Miss Fortune" who can only see the bad things in your future.
Vocabulary lists containing misfortune
Power Prefix: mis-
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"The Experiment" and "Superstition"
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Girl with a Pearl Earring
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Everyone knows the championship is basically over, barring some kind of dramatic misfortune.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
"He was a star... He had chosen the spotlight," Ditum argued, acknowledging that his story had the "misfortune" to break in the middle of a summer news vacuum.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
A gripping finale at Royal Lytham & St Annes was brimming with drama, magic and misfortune - particularly on the crucial 18th hole.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
At the time of her misfortune, I was book editor of the Los Angeles Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
It gave me such a funny feeling, as if I’d denounced them to the authorities and was now spying on their misfortune.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Despite undeniable talent, those early misfortunes could now be seen as an omen of what was to come.
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
Back pain, difficult childbirth, dental crowding and sinus infections are not random misfortunes.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
Sarah Ferguson's image was once about her good-humoured ability to bounce back from misfortunes and embarrassment, but the latest Epstein emails appear to cast her in a different light.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
Despite all of her misfortunes, self-inflicted or otherwise, Allen held her head high, beating the notoriously brutal British tabloids at their own game — or, at the very least, becoming a formative opponent.
From Salon ● Oct. 29, 2025
To him the occasional misfortunes of life were simply part of things.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
