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ill-starred

[il-stahrd]
See more synonyms for ill-starred on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. doomed to misfortune or disaster; ill-fated; unlucky: an ill-starred enterprise.
  2. disastrous: an ill-starred marriage.
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Origin of ill-starred

First recorded in 1595–1605
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

sadfatefulmiserabledreadfuldeadlycalamitousunfortunatepitifulfatalharrowingpainfulgrievouspatheticcataclysmicdisastrousdireawfuldestructivegrimterrible

Examples from the Web for ill-starred

Historical Examples

  • "My ill-starred novel—my story of Aberdeen Hall," she laughed.

    Mary Ware's Promised Land

    Annie Fellows Johnston

  • The Corsican expedition was quite as ill-starred as the French.

    The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte

    William Milligan Sloane

  • George Godolphin knew that he alluded to the ill-starred Nick.

  • The less said about this splendid but ill-starred effort the better.

  • She had no clear ideas, no logic from the other ill-starred home.

    Bannertail

    Ernest Thompson Seton

British Dictionary definitions for ill-starred

ill-starred

adjective
  1. unlucky; unfortunate; ill-fated
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012