hapless
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hapless
Explanation
Use the adjective hapless to describe someone unlucky and deserving of pity, like the hapless car buyer who gives in to the fast-talking salesperson. The word hapless traces all the way back to the Old Norse word happ, meaning “chance, good luck.” Combine this with the suffix -less (“lacking”) and hapless means “unlucky” or “ill-fated.” A traveler who goes to Moscow and briefly gets lost on the subway? Just a tourist. A traveler who goes to Moscow, accidentally eats food he is allergic to, somehow loses all his money, and by chance gets on a train destined for Mongolia? Definitely hapless.
Vocabulary lists containing hapless
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "H"
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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.
Wearing drill-sergeant regalia, Porowski instructs a group of hapless male shopper actors in such supermarket fundamentals as distinguishing celery from leeks, checking expiration dates and identifying ripe bananas.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
Speaking to the media on Thursday, McDermott likened it to the hapless journey undertaken by Steve Martin and John Candy in their 1987 road-trip comedy.
From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026
In Prime Video’s “Spider-Noir,” he played Ben Reilly, a hapless and jaded private eye who used to moonlight as a masked vigilante known as the Spider until the love of his life was murdered.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Kevin Sussman returns as the hapless owner of a comic-book store in a hilarious HBO Max follow-up to “The Big Bang Theory.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
In consequence, as Smith later crowed, the hapless Mayflower spent several frigid weeks scouting around Cape Cod for a good place to land, during which time many colonists became sick and died.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
