DictionaryAI

unfortunate

USun-FOR-chuh-nit/ʌnˈfɔɹ.t͡ʃə.nɪt/UKun-FAW-chuh-nuht/ʌnˈfɔː.t͡ʃə.nət/

Noun pluralunfortunates

5 meanings of unfortunate

Practice

  1. 1
    adjective
    Marked by, accompanied by, or leading to misfortune or bad luck.

    The unfortunate decision to cut corners ended up costing the company millions.

    A storm during the launch made for an unfortunate beginning to the voyage.

    Similarunlucky

    Oppositelucky, fortunate

    Note

    Here the misfortune belongs to an event or a thing, not to a person's luck: an unfortunate decision, beginning or accident. The Autocar in 1933 even calls a towed Morris "the unfortunate car" as it rolls back into a shop window, lending an object a little sympathy. The contrast with the luckless-person sense is direction: there someone suffers misfortune, and here something brings it or is caught in it.

  2. 2
    adjective
    Regrettable, or poorly suited to the occasion or circumstances.

    The mayor later apologized for the unfortunate remark about the protesters.

    Pairing the formal speech with such casual music was an unfortunate match.

    Similarregrettable, inappropriate, unsuitable, ill-advised

    Oppositeappropriate, suitable, apt

  3. 3
    adjective
    Not blessed with good fortune; beset by bad luck.

    The unfortunate traveler missed three connecting flights in a single day.

    Few were as unfortunate as the villagers whose crops failed two years running.

    Similarunsuccessful

    Oppositefortunate

    Note

    English built this word for itself from un- plus fortunate, though an older twin, infortunate, carries the same idea. In this sense the bad luck lands on someone: the unfortunate traveler suffers fortune rather than causing it. Unsuccessful sits close but is narrower, since it judges an outcome, while unfortunate puts the blame on chance. Its plain opposite is fortunate.

  4. 4
    nouncountable
    A person who has suffered bad luck or fallen into difficult circumstances.

    The charity was founded to feed and house the city's unfortunates.

    He saw himself as a kindly patron of every unfortunate who knocked on his door.

    Note

    The adjective turned into a countable noun with an ordinary plural: one unfortunate, the unfortunates. Trains Illustrated in 1960 reports that "one unfortunate" now walks to work, and Lucy Mangan in 2026 writes of "the unfortunates aboard the Triumph." Both carry a faint, sympathetic wryness. Because the old euphemism for a prostitute shares the spelling, older texts call for a glance at context.

Less common meaning

  1. 5
    nounarchaiceuphemistic
    A pitying, indirect word for a prostitute, used in earlier eras to avoid the blunt term.

    The constable led two unfortunates away from the docks before midnight.

    A young unfortunate stood beneath the gaslamp, waiting in the cold rain.

    Note

    A euphemism that works through pity rather than vagueness: it borrows the "unlucky person" noun and leaves the reader to supply the rest. The two meanings share one spelling and one plural, so only context tells them apart, and a modern reader will usually hear the general sense first. Today it belongs in historical fiction or period pastiche. Elsewhere, a plainer term is clearer and sounds less condescending.

Practice

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Origin

Formed from the prefix 'un-' added to 'fortunate', and a doublet of 'infortunate'.