Adjective

(en adjective)

Very unlucky; ill-fated.

* {{quote-book

, year=1818 , author= , title=Frankenstein , section= , passage=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.}}

* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=

, title= , chapter=2 citation , passage=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 , , The Mob , act 1:

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

* 2008 , Harriet Barovick, " Detroit The Lost Season," Time , 31 Dec.:

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

Devoid of talent or skill.

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=April 26 , author=Tasha Robinson , title=Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits : , work=The Onion AV Club , url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-pirates-band-of-misfits,73064/ , page= , passage=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. }}

*

Adjective

(en-adj)

In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

*

*:Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

*, chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}

* (George Bernard Shaw) (1856–1950)

*:The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation.

Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent.

:

Wretched; worthless; mean.

:

(lb) Causing unhappiness or misery.

*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)

*:What's more miserable than discontent?

(lb) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.

:(Hooker)