Wretched vs Hapless - What's the difference?
wretched | hapless |
Very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting.
* {{quote-book, year=1918, author=(w)
, title=Creatures That Once Were Men, and other stories, chapter=4
Worthless; paltry; very poor or mean; miserable.
* {{quote-book, year=1864, author=(Fyodor Dostoyevsky), title=Notes from Underground, chapter=1
*, chapter=17
, title= * , Episode 16
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 11, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
, title= (obsolete) Hatefully contemptible; despicable; wicked.
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 * 1914 , , The Mob , act 1:
* 2008 , Harriet Barovick, "
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. }}
*
As adjectives the difference between wretched and hapless
is that wretched is very miserable; sunk in, or accompanied by, deep affliction or distress, as from want, anxiety, or grief; calamitous; woeful; very afflicting while hapless is very unlucky; ill-fated.wretched
English
(Webster 1913)Adjective
(en-adj)citation, passage=As for me, I felt wretched and helpless, in the darkness, surrounded with angry waves, whose noise deafened me.}}
citation, passage=My room is a wretched , horrid one in the outskirts of the town.}}
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.}}
- All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag,.
Liverpool 3-0 Man City, passage=Mario Balotelli replaced Tevez but his contribution was so negligible that he suffered the indignity of being substituted himself as time ran out, a development that encapsulated a wretched 90 minutes for City and boss Roberto Mancini. }}
Usage notes
* Nouns to which "wretched" is often applied: woman, state, life, condition, creature, man, excess, person, place, world, being, situation, weather, slave, animal, city, village, health, house, town.Quotations
* To what wretched state reserved! Milton * Wretched ungratefulness . Sir Philip Sidney * Wrechet World King LearSynonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* wretchednessExternal links
* *hapless
English
Adjective
(en adjective)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.}}
- My dear friend, are you to become that hapless kind of outcast, a champion of lost causes?
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.
