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Apr 28, 2020
This week’s theme
Words to describe people

This week’s words
ambivert
hapless
superbious
hoary
precocious

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

hapless

PRONUNCIATION:
(HAP-lis)

MEANING:
adjective: Unfortunate.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Old Norse happ (good luck) + less, from Old English laes (without). Earliest documented use: 1400.

USAGE:
“Sticking his gun into the patrolman’s abdomen, Chuck once more pulled the trigger, and again the gun didn’t fire. By then O’Sullivan had joined the fray, and the officers arrested the hapless gunman.”
Matthew Bernstein; The Fix Is In; Wild West (Leesburg, Virginia); Jun 2020.

See more usage examples of hapless in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it. -Terry Pratchett, novelist (Apr 28 1948-2015)

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