Unfortunately

//ʌnˈfɔː.tjʊ.nət.li// adv

adv ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    Happening through bad luck, or because of some unfortunate event.

    "He unfortunately placed his hand on a loose brick."

  2. 2
    Used (as a parenthetical word, often a sentence adverb) to express disappointment, compassion, sorrow, regret, or grief.

    "The houses which burned down could have been saved. Unfortunately, the fire truck had broken down on the way."

Adverb
  1. 1
    by bad luck wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alasalasbadlyby ill hapby ill luckill

Example

More examples

"Unfortunately, the telephone was out of order."

Etymology

From unfortunate + -ly or un- + fortunately.

Related phrases

bad luck

More for "unfortunately"

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