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:
If Wendy Wasserstein wrote a worse play than “An American Daughter,” I hope I never have the misfortune of seeing it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 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
"The most effective and relentless lobbyist that it has been my misfortune to encounter during the last two decades," according to ex-minister Sir Oliver Letwin.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
At the time of her misfortune, I was book editor of the Los Angeles Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
On the former score, Adams had the misfortune to become the first occupant of what he described as “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
A good rule of thumb is that you can make fun of attitudes, behaviors and yes, pants, but not core attributes or misfortunes a person can’t help.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
Back pain, difficult childbirth, dental crowding and sinus infections are not random misfortunes.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
But Germany’s misfortunes are also partly homemade, economists say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
The festival comes with many traditions, including deep-cleaning the house beforehand to sweep away the old year's misfortunes and welcome a fresh start.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause—the monster whom I had created, the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruction.
From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
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.
