A. adj. 1. Of persons, etc.: Not favored by fortune; meeting with bad fortune; suffering mishap or mischance; unlucky.
For examples of the superlative in -est see (b).
1530. Palsgr., 328/1. Unfortunate,… malfortuné.
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius, IV. 55 b. I haue learned to be vnfortunate, and it is often tymes a comforte of a mans calamitie to know his misshapp.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades, 254. Hee was of all the Jewishe kinges … in his lyfe the most vnfortunate.
1652. Nicholas Papers (Camden), 315. He hath been not only unfortunate in most of his counsels but incompatible in business.
1680. Charac. Town-Miss (Hindley III), 5. She shall … fall a Sniveling and call herself the most unfortunate of Women.
1769. Robertson, Chas. V., II. Wks. 1813, VI. 81. It was late next morning before the fate of the unfortunate prince was known.
1804–6. Syd. Smith, Mor. Philos. (1850), 218. You travel for twenty or five-and-twenty miles over one of the most unfortunate, desolate countries under heaven.
1885. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ Valerie’s Fate, vi. The unfortunate gentleman was well known…. What a blow his death will be to … his partner!
absol. 1675. Dryden, Aurengz., V. (1676), 72. Envious death will shun th’unfortunate.
1712. Pope, Lett. (1735), I. 177. The Unfortunate of all People are the most unfit to be left alone.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxvii. (1787), III. 7. He was taught, by cruel experience, that every gate is shut against the unfortunate.
1825. Scott, Talism., xx. To have doomed the unfortunate to death might have been severity, but had a show of justice.
(b) 1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea, 2. The Revenge, which was ever the vnfortunatest Ship the late Queenes Maiestie had.
1639. S. Du Verger, trans. Camus’ Admir. Events, 35. Tearming himselfe the unfortunatest of all lovers.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xxix. I remember the time when he was the unluckiest and unfortunatest of men.
† b. Const. of. Obs.–1
1611. Speed, England, Wales, II. vii. The Townes for commerce,… two of them vnfortunate of their former greatnes.
c. In specific uses: (see quots.).
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. T., Unfortunate gentlemen, the horse guards, who thus named themselves in Germany. Ibid. (1796), Unfortunate women, prostitutes.
1827. Hare, Guesses, Ser. I. (1847), 154. As a strumpet is become an unfortunate female.
1883. Miss M. Betham-Edwards, Disarmed, xxxviii. Alice Ashe, seamstress, unmarried, ‘unfortunate.’
2. Marked by, or associated with, misfortune or mishap; disastrous, inauspicious. Also, in weaker sense: Untoward, unlucky, regrettable.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VI., 178. What number of noble men haue ben … executed, sith that vnfortunate day.
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 404 b. But after chaunced a time more unfortunate.
1600. Hakluyt, Voy., III. 318. They put themselues to sea, and with so slender victuals, that the end of their interprise became vnluckly and vnfortunate.
1626. D’Ewes, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. III. 218. By reason of suspicion of irregularitie upon the unfortunate killing of a man some few yeares since.
1671. Milton, Samson, 747. In some part to recompense My rash but more unfortunate misdeed.
1779. Mirror, No. 33. But for this unfortunate weakness, Mr. Gold … would make one of the best of husbands.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. xxi. 354. Would not some link of connexion with this ‘unfortunate business,’ as he styled it, be detected?
1885. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ At Bay, iii. Is it not unfortunate?… my father can not return till to-morrow.
1890. Retrospect Med., CII. 103. The word ‘massage’ seems rather an unfortunate one to apply to the procedure.
B. sb. 1. One who is unfortunate; an unfortunate person.
1683. T. Hoy, Agathocles, 23. But of the brave Unfortunates was none Whose glorious Suff’rings Philocles out-shone.
1697. Burghope, Disc. Relig. Assemb., 87. Out of pity to those unfortunates that are design’d for that place [sc. hell].
1776. S. J. Pratt, Pupil of Pleas. (1777), I. 206. You … appeared only in the light of a person … not allied to the parent of that dear unfortunate.
1801. Monthly Mag., II. 131. You will not be able to avoid pitying these unfortunates when they inform you that their souls are mortal.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., i. 2. These unfortunates are wont to be trained and taught by those who speak.
2. A fallen woman; a prostitute.
1844. Hood, Bridge of Sighs, i. One more Unfortunate … Gone to her death!
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. v. 118. Unfortunates committed to prison were in evil case.
3. Irish. An idiot.
1881. Folk Lore Rec., IV. 113. Do you see that ‘innocent’ or ‘unfortunate’ or ‘object?’ he was the greatest god-send to so-and-so.
