How to Use hapless in a Sentence

hapless

adjective
  • She plays the hapless heroine who is unlucky in love.
  • Gulls and boobies darted down to gorge on the hapless creatures.
    Erin Florio, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 Nov. 2024
  • One of those people is Lethem’s hapless hero, Sandy Duplessis.
    Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2020
  • The Texans have two victories over hapless Jacksonville.
    Terry Pluto, cleveland, 15 Nov. 2020
  • Houston's only two victories are against Jacksonville, which is almost as hapless as the Jets.
    Barry Wilner, Star Tribune, 21 Nov. 2020
  • The 2020 election is — but is not — about hapless Joe Biden and his surrogate hard-left agenda.
    Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2 Nov. 2020
  • Shostakovich is reduced to a hapless victim of circumstance, incapable of speaking in an independent voice.
    Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2024
  • Coach Don Shula, who had taken over the hapless Dolphins that year, made Scott a starter and was instantly rewarded.
    Ken Belson, New York Times, 22 Nov. 2020
  • The quartet reunite in Wales for a 10-year anniversary fan convention of their last hit film, only to discover the hapless studio rep has booked the wrong month.
    Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 4 Nov. 2024
  • All the Colts had to do to make the playoffs was beat the hapless 2-14 Jacksonville Jaguars.
    Matthew Vantryon, The Indianapolis Star, 9 Jan. 2022
  • That costs him — and his hapless partners — tons of points.
    Frank Stewart, The Mercury News, 26 July 2024
  • What if the Bengals lose Sunday in Jersey to the hapless Jets?
    Paul Daugherty, The Enquirer, 26 Oct. 2021
  • Break the curse, beat a hapless Jacksonville team in the Florida sun and the Colts are headed to the playoffs.
    Joel A. Erickson, The Indianapolis Star, 8 Jan. 2022
  • The dizzying pacing, the litany of hapless jokes, the all-out slapstick and the familiar shtick.
    Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 1 Aug. 2024
  • She’s accompanied by the very last dragon in the world: the hapless but kind Sisu.
    The Editors, Outside Online, 23 Dec. 2021
  • Better to be miles above the ground for longer, than stuck hapless in a stuffy cabin, unable to take off.
    Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2024
  • Charlie Winshaw, the hapless new face of the franchise.
    Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 10 Dec. 2021
  • In no way does this mean that Kyle Shanahan and Co. can overlook a hapless Detroit team on the road.
    Vincent Frank, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2021
  • What the hapless Kafka-esque hero is accused of, no one knows, and no one cares.
    Charlie Fink, Forbes, 17 June 2021
  • The Chargers are not the hapless Jets, of course, but the Chargers do have the league’s worst run defense by giving up 162.5 yards per game.
    Matt Youmans, Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2021
  • Meanwhile, Beau’s hapless lawyer is thrown from his balcony and smashed against the rocks below.
    Vulture, 13 June 2023
  • The offense looked hapless for much of it as the Tigers did just enough to beat a two-win Mississippi State team.
    John Talty | Jtalty@al.com, al, 13 Dec. 2020
  • The hapless guard also got a tongue-lashing from my mother.
    Melanie Stetson Freeman, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 May 2023
  • Dismantling the hapless Colts, who fired coach Frank Reich the very next day, may not be a promise of more.
    Tara Sullivan, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard and Emmanuelle Seigner are just a few of the hapless adults caught in their web.
    Matt Donnelly, Variety, 17 Aug. 2023
  • Stranger Things Season 4 brought love, loss, and gore for our hapless Hawkins heroes.
    Milan Polk, Men's Health, 7 July 2022
  • But this isn’t a column about a hapless husband who falls apart when he’s left to his own devices.
    John Kelly, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2022
  • But then again, why not love your job, your sister, your tutee, and your hapless neighbor and just hope for the best?
    Chloe Schama, Vogue, 9 July 2021
  • When running back Leonard Fournette punched in the next score, tying the game 27-27, the Bucs had come all the way back and the Rams looked utterly hapless.
    Andrew Beaton, WSJ, 23 Jan. 2022
  • Prosecutors said Klein was not a hapless member of the crowd but a leader in the charge to storm the building.
    Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hapless.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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