lucky
1 Americanadjective
-
luckier,
comparative
-
luckiest
superlative
-
having or marked by good luck; fortunate.
That was my lucky day.
- Synonyms:
- blessed
- Antonyms:
- unfortunate
-
happening fortunately.
a lucky accident.
-
bringing or foretelling good luck, or supposed to do so.
a lucky penny.
- Synonyms:
- favorable, propitious, auspicious
noun
-
luckies
plural
-
a familiar name applied to an elderly woman, especially a grandmother; granny.
-
a familiar name applied to a woman, as one's wife or a barmaid.
adjective
-
having or bringing good fortune
-
happening by chance, esp as desired
Usage
What are other ways to say lucky? Someone or something that is lucky has or is marked by good luck. How is lucky different from happy or fortunate? Find out on Thesaurus.com.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of lucky1
First recorded in 1495–1505; luck + -y 1
Origin of lucky2
Explanation
When you're lucky, things work out well for you — you experience good fortune. If you're feeling lucky, it might be a good day to buy a lottery ticket or guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. Lucky people seem to have everything going for them, and your lucky charm (like a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover) seems to bring that kind of success in your direction. Some lucky things are happy coincidences: "How lucky that I ran into you this morning!" When you're envious of someone else's big break, you can say, "You lucky devil." Lucky and luck come from the Middle Dutch gheluc, "good fortune."
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:
Like many who vied for and landed a competitive position, Mourabet internalized the sense that he was lucky to be there.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026
“Cover me in candy, I’m so lucky that I get to know you.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
“We were so lucky to find this apartment,” she said of the beautifully-lit two-bedroom.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 2, 2026
I needed a detox, and I was lucky enough to be able to take one.
From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2026
"How lucky I am!" he said to himself.
From "Adventures of Don Quixote" by Argentina Palacios
Even the beloveds, wonderfuls, luckies and so on were all Dones, and the awfuls were Not-Dooes.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Kang survived, which made him luckier than others.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Shahdeh Zaarb, 45, is luckier than his fellow Gazans, for he holds West Bank residency, having worked there regularly for the past 20 years.
From Barron's ● May 9, 2026
As McDermott said, “You control how hard you work, and the harder you work, the luckier you’re going to get.”
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 18, 2026
"But the most important thing is that all of us are safe. We are luckier than many other families."
From BBC ● Nov. 27, 2025
“He’s out of it now and maybe he’s luckier than we are.”
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
Reaching pension age in the country is widely considered a rite of passage into a second phase of life dedicated to travel, hobbies and leisure that, for the luckiest, can stretch well into three decades.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2026
“I feel like the luckiest guy in New York right now, to be honest with you,” Sadoski told Backstage on Broadway at the time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
"I am without a doubt, officially, the world's luckiest man," he told the paper.
From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2026
And the deli guy every Saturday morning would hand me a free slice of American cheese and I was like the luckiest kid in the world.
From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2026
Wasn’t I the luckiest boy in the world?
From "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls
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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.
