unlucky
Americanadjective
-
(of a person) not lucky; lacking good fortune; ill-fated.
-
(of an event or circumstance) inauspicious or characterized by misfortune; ominous.
adjective
-
characterized by misfortune or failure
an unlucky person
an unlucky chance
-
ill-omened; inauspicious
an unlucky date
-
regrettable; disappointing
-
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:
Most of her trips—other than one unlucky boat ride—have gone smoothly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Aside from an unlucky draw, there is a short list of reasons a prisoner ends up here.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026
"Very happy with how I gave myself the opportunity to win today and how I handled myself. Just got a bit unlucky on the second play-off hole there."
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
"Being impacted by such a rare, distant projectile really underscores how unlucky the dinosaurs were," says Dr. Claeys.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 19, 2026
As for the impossible task being invoked—they’d gotten unlucky.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
"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
Or was it, unluckier even than Magna Charta, clipt by sacrilegious Tailors?
From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
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
He added: “She was the unluckiest person I’d ever heard of.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
This label of “maybe the world’s unluckiest penguins” comes from Peter, who has shared the penguins’ ups and downs for years.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2024
Maybe it hit the floor and rolled into another crack—a crack in the living room floor—which would make Genie the unluckiest kid in the world.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
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.
