: marked by, relating to, or experiencing bad luck or difficulty
another loss for the team's hard-luck pitcher
hard-luck stories

Examples of hard-luck in a Sentence

a hard-luck ball club that never could get the breaks it needed
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
While the Chiefs have been consistently strong, with some remarkable good fortune this season and continued horseshoe following them, the Bills have suffered some severe hard-luck losses including to the Chiefs in the recent playoff years. Jay Ginsbach, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2025 And after a hard-luck start to his career, Bateman getting in the end zone has become the ultimate good omen for the Ravens, who will face the Buffalo Bills Sunday night at Highmark Stadium in the AFC divisional round. Jeff Zrebiec, The Athletic, 16 Jan. 2025 Ole Miss finished a hard-luck 5-6 with its final five losses coming by one score. Scott Dochterman, The Athletic, 15 Jan. 2025 The redshirt freshman stayed away from a stomach bug that plagued the rest of the position group just weeks before the season, which proved to be an ominous sign of things to come for perhaps the most hard-luck unit in the College Football Playoff. Cameron Teague Robinson, The Athletic, 31 Dec. 2024 The aftermath: Fister, a hard-luck 12-30 for Seattle, went 32-20 for the Tigers with a 2.98 postseason ERA. Tyler Kepner, The Athletic, 26 July 2024 Ticketed, booted, towed — there are a million hard-luck parking enforcement stories in the naked city. Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2024 His latest album, 2023’s Twenty on High, is a revelatory collection of hard-luck stories and working-class resilience. Garret K. Woodward, Rolling Stone, 30 July 2024 The rise from an impoverished, dysfunctional upbringing in hard-luck Appalachia to Yale Law School and the U.S. Senate is truly the stuff of political myth-making. Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1890, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hard-luck was in 1890

Dictionary Entries Near hard-luck

Cite this Entry

“Hard-luck.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hard-luck. Accessed 1 Feb. 2025.

Kids Definition

hard-luck

adjective
ˈhärd-ˌlək
: marked by, relating to, or experiencing bad luck
hard-luck stories
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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