bad luck
166
1.0
- noun
- /bæd lʌk/
:
mala suerte
- I had a run of bad luck.
- good and bad luck
- just bad luck
And honestly, you just had the bad luck to be in their crosshairs.
- And honestly, you just had the bad luck to be in their crosshairs.
- But yeah, so it's bad luck to have the goat head, right?
- So I had a bit of bad luck at the end of my first year.
- I've burned all my bridges with a series of jobs, either through bad luck or the drugs, right?
- Well, because you're poor, and I'm sure that's just bad luck.
- I mean, that's just the the way it is and just bad luck.
- Like you need to have enough bankroll to survive a string of bad luck, right?
- Yeah, well, you have the bad luck of timing because this is new.
- Don't stop using words like unfair or bad luck and stop using terms like victim.
- You can make the best possible decision and bad luck or randomness.
Examples
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So I had a bit of bad luck at the end of my first year.
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He's just had bad luck.
-
So someone who has bad luck is talking to you.
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Yeah, I mean, sure, it's probably bad luck that you missed it.
-
I thought of myself as just having some bad luck and playing the game extremely hard.
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So I feel badly that he had the bad luck of that happening to him.
-
There must be some sort of bad luck following you nowadays.
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It was just, you know, bad luck in some respect.
-
If it weren't for bad luck, she'd have no luck at all.
Fiction book (1995) -
I thought my bad luck would never end after losing my job.
Synonyms
75
3.7
A bad event that causes trouble
71
4.9
A difficult time when you face many problems
62
3.4
A small accident that causes trouble but not serious harm
1
8.5
An unlucky event that causes problems
1
3.8
Bad things that happen to someone by chance
1
6.8
A time when someone has bad luck
A situation in which bad things keep happening to someone
Antonyms
How Lucky
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'misfortune' is a direct, compositional combination of 'bad' (negative/poor) + 'luck' (chance affecting outcomes), so a learner who knows both words can readily infer 'bad luck' means unfortunate events. This adjective+noun pattern mapping to a negative outcome is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward English composition, making it immediately understandable at B1 level.
Etymology
Bad luck may come from old games like dice or cards, where a bad roll made people say luck was against them. So bad luck means 'unfortunate events' that happen by chance.