: 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.
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 The latest delay was a familiar setback for the hard-luck Starliner, which has suffered a steady stream of frustrating complications since an initial unpiloted test flight in 2019 was derailed by software problems and communications glitches. William Harwood, CBS News, 21 May 2024 Head-to-head with Donald Trump Now that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended his hard-luck campaign just before Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, Haley will be going head-to-head with her former boss on Tuesday in the Granite State. USA TODAY, 22 Jan. 2024 Horan was the hard-luck shooter of the game, denied multiple times by Musovic and clanking another header off the crossbar. Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Aug. 2023 And Rafael Devers has had kind of a hard-luck year, even as he’s been productive. Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 14 July 2023 Williams came up short in her effort, a hard-luck, 6-4, 6-3 loss to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in which Williams aggravated an injured right knee early in the match. Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 3 July 2023

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 28 Nov. 2024.

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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