Word Finder - misfortune

definition

Bad luck

example

It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. - Ulysses S. Grant

definition

An undesirable event such as an accident

example

She had to come to terms with a number of misfortunes.

He had the misfortune to lose his father at the age of two.

But hearing of his misfortune they retreated before Napoleon's advance along the right bank of the Danube to Krems, where they crossed the river and withdrew to an entrenched camp near Olmi tz to pick up fresh Austrian reinforcements.

But he did not allow his misfortune to put a stop to his work, and in 1708 produced a large Dictionnaire universel geographique et historique in three volumes folio.

In spite of this misfortune, Napoleon could claim a brilliant success for himself, but almost at the same moment news reached him that Oudinot at Grossbeeren near Berlin, and Macdonald on the Katzbach opposed to Blucher, had both been severely defeated.

But once again misfortune was to attend the attempt.

What misfortune can happen to them?

This misfortune was also ascribed to the corn laws.

The Wizard told them of the misfortune that had overtaken the wanderers.

It is borne by the parties to whose property the misfortune happens or by their insurers.

It was the misfortune of the country that there was no clear legal basis on which new institutions could be erected.

If it has the misfortune to be systematized by an enthusiastic but dull and incompetent disciple, it may appear even absurd.

Further incursions made by the Danes in 998 and in 1015 under Canute probably resulted in the destruction of the priory, on the site of which a later house was founded in the 12th century as a cell of the Norman abbey of Lysa, and in the decayed condition of Wareham in 1086, when 203 houses were ruined or waste, the result of misfortune, poverty and fire.

His private life and his administration were blameless, but it was his misfortune to reign in troublous times.

There is no greater misfortune than not to be able to bear misfortune.

Our own misfortune or bad luck always get us laughing.

Under their peaceful rule their territories flourished, until the weakening of the Mogul empire and the rise of the predatory Bundela and Mahratta powers, with the organized forces of which their semi-barbarous feudal levies were unable to cope, brought misfortune upon them.

Now the rise of the problems of individual faith is the mark of the age that followed Jeremiah, while the confident assertion of national righteousness under misfortune is a characteristic mark of pious Judaism after Ezra, in the period of the law but not earlier.

It was a misfortune to the royal cause; and Henry was compelled to purchase the papal absolution by a complete surrender on the question of criminous clerks (1172).

His activity was in so far a misfortune as it led him to attempt too many things at once, and engage in undertakings so costly that oppression became necessary to provide the funds for them.

Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together.

He was not depressed by this misfortune, especially as he was at the time closely engaged in the preparation of the Historical and Critical Dictionary (Dictionnaire historique et critique) .

The misfortune and misconduct of his parents were not the only troubles of Kepler's childhood.

His gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune.

That is our common misfortune, and I shall grudge nothing to help you.

As usual with him, misfortune followed close behind; for he lost in quick succession his brother Wilhelm and another sister.

It is Lord Dalhousie's misfortune that these benefits are too often forgotten in the vivid recollections of the Mutiny, which avenged his policy of annexation.

To add to his troubles he had the misfortune to lose his only son at the age of 37.

The children of Inez shared her habit of misfortune.

On the fall of the Rudini cabinet in May 1892, Giolitti, with the help of a court clique, succeeded to the premiership. His term of office was marked by misfortune and misgovernment.

There was a tendency in time of misfortune to revert to earlier rites (illustrated in some ancient mourning customs), and it may have been some old disused practice revived under the pressure of national distress.

At one time it is a summons to do battle for the faith; at another, a series of reflections on recently experienced success or misfortune, or a rebuke for their weak faith; or an exhortation to virtue, and so on.

It was a further misfortune that when Keppel hoisted his flag one of his subordinate admirals should have been Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), who was a member of the Admiralty Board, a member of parliament, and in Keppel's opinion, which was generally shared, jointly responsible with his colleagues for the bad state of the navy.

Jesus turns the focus from past misfortune to present repentance.

You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!

But his family had been marked out for misfortune from the outset.

In personal character he has sometimes been described as having been revoltingly heartless; and it is abundantly plain that he was singularly incapable of feeling strongly the more generous emotions - a misfortune, or a fault, which revealed itself in many ways.

Lamartine's chief misfortune in poetry was not only that his note was a somewhat weak one, but that he could strike but one.

He was a remarkable linguist, conversationalist and orator, notable for his uncompromising independence, his opinion that the German reformation was a misfortune and that the reformation should have been within the church.

The death of William was a great misfortune to Defoe, and he soon felt the power of his adversaries.

But this misfortune proved only temporary.

It was violently opposed as "subversive of the last remains of English liberty" and as likely to result in "some public misfortune or an epidemical distemper."

With a battle-front exceeding two days' marches the wrong distribution of reserves by both sides was a grave misfortune.

Job is a righteous man, overwhelmed with undeserved misfortune; and thus the question is raised, Why do the righteous suffer?

The same misfortune attended a fresh stroke against Ciudad Rodrigo, and at the end of a campaign in which he had used all his skill and care to compensate for inferior numbers, he withdrew behind the Coa.

It may be that his early death, during the great plague of 1350, at the siege of Gibraltar, only averted a desperate struggle with his legitimate son, though it was a misfortune in that it removed a ruler of eminent capacity, who understood his subjects well enough not to go too far.

Exactly four months after the battle of Corrichie, and the subsequent execution of a criminal whom she is said to have "loved entirely," had put an end to the first insurrection raised against her, Pierre de Boscosel de Chastelard, who had returned to France with the other companions of her arrival, and in November i 562 had revisited Scotland, expiated with his head the offence or the misfortune of a second detection at night in her bed-chamber.

To add to this misfortune, during his absence some of his supporters violated the sanctuary at Westminster.

Julius was undoubtedly in energy and genius one of the greatest popes since Innocent III., and it is a misfortune of the Church that his temporal policy eclipsed his spiritual office.

The rest of his life is largely a record of wandering and misfortune.

Ferdinand, however, deserted the English alliance, and amid the consequent irritation against everything Spanish, there was talk of a divorce between Henry and Catherine (1514), whose issue had hitherto been attended with fatal misfortune.