Misfortune

//mɪsˈfɔɹt͡ʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Bad luck. uncountable

    "The worst tour I have ever had the misfortune to experience."

  2. 2
    unnecessary and unforeseen trouble resulting from an unfortunate event wordnet
  3. 3
    An undesirable event such as an accident. countable

    "She had to come to terms with a number of misfortunes."

  4. 4
    an unfortunate state resulting from unfavorable outcomes wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
adversitybad luckblowcalamitycasualtyill luck

Example

More examples

"Years of resistance to misfortune ended when the settlers' village was overcome by the savages and their hopes and lives came to the bitter end."

Etymology

From mis- + fortune.

Related phrases

soldier of misfortunebad luck

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