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:
I feel like the Cherries have been a bit unlucky with their results under Rose so far, because they have conceded some costly late goals, but Scott's absence is a huge blow for them.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Your friend was unlucky that she took a tumble on those basement stairs.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
Going back to our earlier example, if the million-dollar home fell in value by 10%, the unlucky owner of this highly leveraged asset would lose 50% of their initial equity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
The timing in this case was clearly unlucky.
From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026
In those days, you were unlucky if you had exhausted your own possibilities.
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
"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
And if it happened to be his head that Timothy Turtle seized—well, then he was unluckier still!
From The Tale of Bobby Bobolink Tuck-me-In Tales by Arthur Scott Bailey
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
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
How did one of football’s unluckiest franchises manage to blow things this badly?
From Slate ● Jan. 29, 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
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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.
