1
: weak, ineffective
She can't rely on her feckless son.
2
: worthless, irresponsible
a feckless maneuver that could only serve to strengthen the enemy—
Simon Schama
Simon Schama
fecklessly
adverb
fecklessness
noun
Did you know?
A feckless person is lacking in feck. And what, you may ask, is feck? In Scots—our source of feckless—feck means "majority" or "effect." The term is ultimately an alteration of the Middle English effect. So something without feck is without effect, i.e., ineffective. In the past, feckful (meaning "efficient, effective," "sturdy," or "powerful") made an occasional appearance, but in this case, the weak has outlived the strong: feckless is a commonly used English word, but feckful has proven, well, feckless.
Examples of feckless in a Sentence
She can't rely on her feckless son.
a well-intentioned but feckless response to the rise in school violence
Recent Examples on the Web
My candidacy is a symbol of the end of the weak-kneed, feckless Republican leadership of Mitch McConnell, and the spineless swamp jellyfish that are in the United States Senate representing the Republicans.
—Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Oct. 2025
The double-cross at Piccadilly Circus is inevitable, but the episode plays the sequence elegantly, intercutting Tara’s effort to give her minders the slip with the Park’s feckless attempt to manage a breach in the MI5 database.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2025
Indeed, when feckless opinions driven by ideology become the basis for crafting laws and policies, everyone suffers.
—Sheldon Jacobson, Twin Cities, 25 Sep. 2025
On a good day, the Undervale houses maybe two living human guests and at least a couple dozen haunts of all demographics, time periods and modes of death — including the brother Katherine inherited it all from, the cheerfully feckless Nathan (Will Forte).
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for feckless
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Billal Rahman, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Oct. 2025
The double-cross at Piccadilly Circus is inevitable, but the episode plays the sequence elegantly, intercutting Tara’s effort to give her minders the slip with the Park’s feckless attempt to manage a breach in the MI5 database.
—Scott Tobias, Vulture, 22 Oct. 2025
Indeed, when feckless opinions driven by ideology become the basis for crafting laws and policies, everyone suffers.
—Sheldon Jacobson, Twin Cities, 25 Sep. 2025
On a good day, the Undervale houses maybe two living human guests and at least a couple dozen haunts of all demographics, time periods and modes of death — including the brother Katherine inherited it all from, the cheerfully feckless Nathan (Will Forte).
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for feckless
Cite this Entry
“Feckless.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feckless. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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