Ill-starred

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Doomed to a bad fate; hapless.

    ""Do not name it!" answered he, passionately. "God forgive me! I cannot yet bear its name. But for its ill-starred birth, Henriette might now be living. What is there in that unconscious infant to replace its mother?""

Adjective
  1. 1
    marked by or promising bad fortune wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
apocalypticaugurousbadbadly offbalefulbaleful

Example

More examples

""Do not name it!" answered he, passionately. "God forgive me! I cannot yet bear its name. But for its ill-starred birth, Henriette might now be living. What is there in that unconscious infant to replace its mother?""

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.