as in unfortunate
having, prone to, or marked by bad luck
the hapless motorist had barely paid his bill and driven away from the body shop when a truck sideswiped his car
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of hapless
Second, its main characters, David and Sarah, are nowhere near as tangible as Joel and Clementine, the hapless lovers in the 2004 Michel Gondry classic.
—
Alison Willmore, Vulture, 16 Sep. 2025
Now the Patriots will play what appears to be a hapless Dolphins crew.
—Gladys Louise Tyler, Forbes.com, 13 Sep. 2025
Forty years after Spinal Tap, history’s most hapless band turns it up to 11 one last time.
—James Parker, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2025
Within the first two hours online, high-level fighting players had already seemingly mastered the game’s beginner-friendly systems and begun using the easily executable combos to dominate the scene, air juggling hapless newbies into oblivion.
—Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hapless
Alison Willmore, Vulture, 16 Sep. 2025
Now the Patriots will play what appears to be a hapless Dolphins crew.
—Gladys Louise Tyler, Forbes.com, 13 Sep. 2025
Forty years after Spinal Tap, history’s most hapless band turns it up to 11 one last time.
—James Parker, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2025
Within the first two hours online, high-level fighting players had already seemingly mastered the game’s beginner-friendly systems and begun using the easily executable combos to dominate the scene, air juggling hapless newbies into oblivion.
—Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 9 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hapless
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hapless
Adjective
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All the rest are likely to shine in movies by good directors, and most actors whose reputations aren’t illustriously artistic have mainly been unfortunate in their collaborations.—
Richard Brody,
New Yorker,
30 Sep. 2025
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Irish butter may now an internationally marketable commodity, but in Swift’s day, the Irish peasantry fought back against their replacement by cattle by maiming and driving the unfortunate cattle off cliffs.—
Matthew Wills,
JSTOR Daily,
30 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Roseanne Barr is unhappy that Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
24 Sep. 2025
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There is a form of right-of-center liberalism that is content with status hierarchies, that is very unhappy with anything that makes people feel reprimanded.—
Isaac Chotiner,
New Yorker,
23 Sep. 2025
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.—
Christopher Vourlias,
Variety,
6 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Hapless.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hapless. Accessed 2 Oct. 2025.
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