unlucky
Americanadjective
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(of a person) not lucky; lacking good fortune; ill-fated.
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(of an event or circumstance) inauspicious or characterized by misfortune; ominous.
adjective
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characterized by misfortune or failure
an unlucky person
an unlucky chance
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ill-omened; inauspicious
an unlucky date
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regrettable; disappointing
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dialect causing trouble; mischievous
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unlucky
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:
Characters forced to make do either lash out, like raging overreactors on Lee Sung Jin’s petty, brutal “Beef,” or fall into holding patterns, like the unlucky in love leads of Issa Rae’s dramedy “Insecure.”
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
So the best you can do with such stocks is to avoid them, or sell them immediately if you’re unlucky enough to be holding them.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
One unlucky hiker paid more than $1,000 for a tow down the narrow, 23-mile mountain road after a marmot attack.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
He was unlucky not to have Duckett lbw in the first over, then was not denied when he pinned the England opener on the shin.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
Strong feelings, especially terror and desperation, leave an imprint on the air that echo back to whoever’s unlucky enough to walk through that place again.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
"We couldn't have been unluckier than that. This is not what we were expecting," said Harmanpreet.
From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2023
"Is there anyone unluckier than me?" said Xiaohongshu user "sanmingliu", who posted photos of her shipping container room.
From Reuters ● Nov. 2, 2022
Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of unluckier Afghans who did not manage to board a flight to the United States last summer.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 28, 2022
We saw that, though we were born in far unluckier places, we have all the same talents as our Western-born peers.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2019
"Now, was there ever an unluckier mortal on earth than I?"
From Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume II by Alexander Huth
The first thing that had to go right was an unbelievable stroke of luck on the unluckiest night of Tatum’s life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 22, 2026
They have been called “the unluckiest generation” in U.S. history.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 10, 2026
An early pit stop and a limited tyre allocation boxed Aston and Alonso in, and he bemoaned on the radio that he was "the unluckiest driver ever" as he slumped to an 11th-place finish.
From BBC ● May 18, 2025
How did one of football’s unluckiest franchises manage to blow things this badly?
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 2024
But unluckiest of all was the shooter who completely missed a walker: he faced both a one-point deduction and a lifetime of ribbing.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
