as in unfortunate
having, prone to, or marked by bad luck
a hard-luck ball club that never could get the breaks it needed
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Recent Examples of hard-luck
Burford has stepped in nicely for hard-luck left guard Ben Bartch.
—
Jerry McDonald, Mercury News, 20 Dec. 2025
And so UMass is doing what many hard-luck gamblers have done before: double down.
—Lev Akabas, Sportico.com, 24 Nov. 2025
The latter more than held his own, though, allowing four hits and three runs across 6 2/3 innings before leaving as the hard-luck loser.
—Joe Kozlowski, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2025
The two formerly hard-luck performers, each previously divorced with children, blended their families and achieved enough professional success to open for Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder in Milwaukee.
—Bryan Alexander, USA Today, 27 Oct. 2025
Leiter took a hard-luck loss for his gem as the Yankees wrapped up the title.
—Jayson Stark, New York Times, 29 Sep. 2025
Mikolas suffered a hard-luck setback in his lone meeting with Milwaukee this season.
—Field Level Media, Reuters, 14 Sep. 2025
The offensive issues contributed to rookie Yankees starter Will Warren (6-5) suffering a hard-luck loss.
—Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News, 13 July 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hard-luck
Adjective
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Their late concession of the winning penalty to Morgan Gibbs-White, above, was unfortunate.—
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Many unfortunate events were blamed on poison—the unexpected death of an enslaver or a slave, a spate of local deaths due to a virus or other disease, or problems on the plantation such as ill livestock or bad harvests.—
Adjective
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This is a no-win situation because one of us will end up unhappy.—
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The automaker spent much of the year undoing decisions made by the previous CEO, Carlos Tavares, who resigned at the end of 2024, as stakeholders in the company — from dealers to union rank and file — were upset with him and unhappy with his leadership.—
Adjective
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Vasyanovych plays Roman, a luckless director who’s out of work and trying to shoot his latest film in a country whose dwindling population is still traumatized by the war.—
Adjective
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England only played one warm-up match before the series, against an England Lions team, while McCullum’s attack-minded philosophy has also been questioned amid a number of hapless dismissals during the series.—
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This competition reality show pits hapless home bakers against one another to complete two challenges per episode.—
Adjective
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The spotlight increased after a disastrous interview with CBS to promote the legendary coach’s book.—
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Second goal breaks Charlotte’s back The second half opened with a disastrous sequence for Charlotte.—
Cite this Entry
“Hard-luck.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hard-luck. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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