hapless

From about 1400, from hap (“luck”) +‎ -less.

• IPA^(key): /ˈhæplɪs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈhæpləs/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: (US) -æpləs

hapless (comparative more hapless, superlative most hapless)

1. (Especially of a person) unfortunate.
2. Very unlucky; ill-fated.
   • 1818, [Mary Shelley], “chapter 8”, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, →OCLC:

     Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.

   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

   • 1914, John Galsworthy, The Mob, act 1:

     My dear friend, are you to become that hapless kind of outcast, a champion of lost causes?

   • 2008 December 31, Harriet Barovick, “Detroit The Lost Season”, in Time:

     The hapless squad, which was outscored 517-268 in 2008, became the first in league history to go 0-16.

3. (Very) miserable, wretched, unhappy, measly, forlorn.
4. Devoid of talent or skill.
   • 2012 April 26, Tasha Robinson, “Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits :”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Gideon Defoe scripted from his own series-launching comedic book The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, about the adventures of a hapless group of pirates known only by names like The Pirate With The Scarf, The Pirate With Gout, and in the case of their leader, The Pirate Captain.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:hapless.

• haplessly
• haplessness

• happy
• happen

• phasels, plashes, shpeals