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Unlucky   Listen
adjective
Unlucky  adj.  
1.
Not lucky; not successful; unfortunate; ill-fated; unhappy; as, an unlucky man; an unlucky adventure; an unlucky throw of dice; an unlucky game. Note: This word is properly applied to incidents in which failure results from chance or fortuity, as in games of hazard, rather than from lack or feebleness of effort.
2.
Bringing bad luck; ill-omened; inauspicious. "Haunt me not with that unlucky face."
3.
Mischievous; as, an unlucky wag. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Unlucky" Quotes from Famous Books



... his brother, and seeks here and there harbour from his friends, but his foes are too strong for him, or some unlucky turn of fate always pushes him off the help of men, and he has to take to the wilderness with a price upon his head; and now the other part of the curse falls on him heavier, for ever after the struggle ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... resolved to return to the scene of action, and surprise their incautious enemy. Stealthily advancing, therefore, under the shadows of night, now falling thick around, they poured through the rocky defiles of the inclosure upon the astonished Spaniards. An unlucky explosion, at this crisis, of a cask of powder, into which a spark had accidentally fallen, threw a broad glare over the scene, and revealed for a moment the situation of the hostile parties;—the Spaniards in the utmost disorder, many of them without arms, and staggering under the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... an unlucky stroke, for, instead of penetrating as intended, it glided over the slimy skin, while, overbalancing himself in consequence of meeting with no resistance, Carey to his horror found himself following his stroke, and he would have plunged overboard had not a muscular ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn

... phosphorescent substance. As I have said, I was impressed, and might have ended in complete conversion, by manifestations from so trustworthy a source, and vouched for in such perfect sincerity, had it not, in an unlucky moment, occurred to me to apply ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... all the Furies in league against him? He was more or less a believer in lucky and unlucky days, but he had never experienced anything quite so bad as this. He, the one innocent man in the transaction, having lost almost his last dollar, and having been saddled with a bad horse, was now accused of ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... make thirteen. We can't start our married life with thirteen children; it would be most unlucky. (Walks up and down in agitation.) Some way must be found out of this. If we could only bring them down to twelve. Thirteen is so ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... I am as fond of this Child, as though my Mind misgave me he were my own. He hath as fine a Hand at picking a Pocket as a Woman, and is as nimble-finger'd as a Juggler. If an unlucky Session does not cut the Rope of thy Life, I pronounce, Boy, thou wilt be a great Man in History. Where was your ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... the extra butt, and there is a fourteen-foot rod ready for action. He fishes with a line unbelievably short, and a Kendal hook far too big; and when a trout jumps for that hook, R. wastes no time in manoeuvring for position. The unlucky fish is simply "derricked,"—to borrow a word from Theodore, most saturnine ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry

... anger that seize a man—explosive and suppressed. Holcomb was now suffering under the latter—a subtle anger that would undoubtedly have meant serious injury to the immaculate Sperry had he been unlucky enough to have crossed ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never associate with the unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... enter that military college, and, after a spell of earnest study, I was appointed to a commission in the Eighth Hussars. Proud as I was to become a soldier of France, yet I could not but feel that I was a foreigner, and almost friendless—unlucky, indeed, in the choice of the few friends I possessed. Chief of them was the Marquis de Beauvais, concerning whom I soon made two discoveries—that he was in the thick of an intrigue against the republic I served, and its First Consul, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... Rousseau (a Geneve, 1782-1789), xxxiii. 64, 65.]—What curious reading for a King in such posture, among the miscellaneous arrivals overnight! Above six weeks before either of these NOTES, Friedrich, hearing of him from Lord Marischal, had answered: "An asylum? Yes, by all means: the unlucky cynic!" It is on September 1st, that he sends, by the same channel, 100 crowns for his use, with advice to "give them in NATURA, lest he refuse otherwise;" as Friedrich knows to be possible. In words, the Rousseau Notes got nothing of Answer. "A GARCON SINGULIER," says Friedrich: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... depend more on genius than on experience. It was no lightening of the judgment when he added that the moderns surpass the ancients in doggerel, humour burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule, the arts of the "unlucky little wits." So degraded had wit become! In the Adventurer, nos. 127 and 133, Joseph Warton showed himself to be essentially in agreement with Addison's verdict, differing only in thinking that a few moderns might compare with the ancients in works ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton

... this despair, he suddenly beheld a stranger, standing near the door. Midas bent down his head, without speaking; for he recognized the same figure which had appeared to him the day before in the treasure-room, and had bestowed on him this unlucky power of the Golden Touch. The stranger's countenance still wore a smile, which Seemed to shed a yellow luster all about the room, and Gleamed on little Marygold's image, and on the other Objects that had been changed by the touch ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... that night, tossing and turning in her bed in that delightful apartment in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and reviewing the fell array of these unlucky affairs. As she eyed them, black shapes against the glow of her firelight, it struck her that the same malevolent influence inspired them all. For what had caused the failure and flatness of her tableaux (omitting the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... not really wish to play, though she liked gambling, for she had been unlucky in the small game she had attempted, and had grown cautious, anxious to keep what she had. But on a crowded night it is almost obligatory to play if one has annexed a chair which many people would like to have. Eve reluctantly took out two louis, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... commercial or professional man, works with a reasonable expectation of ending his days in comfort. He would hardly work without. But the poor man's reasonable expectation is the workhouse, or some almost equally galling kind of dependency. The former may count himself very unlucky if after a life of work he comes to destitution; the latter is lucky if he escapes it. Yet the poor man works on, and is of at least as good cheer as the other one. If he can rub along, he is even happy. He is, I think, the happier ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... Armstrong's Dance' was popular when the Complaynt of Scotland was written twenty years later; and Sir David Lyndsay, in one of his plays, makes his Pardoner hawk about, among his relics of saints, the cords of good hemp that hanged the unlucky laird of Gilnockie Hall, with the ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... first lash made him cry for mercy; but the Princess had already gone, and the soldiers, whose duty it was to inflict the whipping, were not much disposed to show mercy to the "One-armed Count." They laid on their blows well, driving the unlucky Fritz through the streets till the gate was reached, through which, with a final shower of blows, he was thrust, with the warning not to return thither, but to beg his way henceforth through the world. Of all who watched the proceedings, none ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... of my readers were born—I was a little good-for-nought of a boy, of precisely that unlucky kind who are always in every body's way, and always in mischief. I had, to watch over my uprearing, a father and mother, and a whole army of older brothers and sisters. My relatives bore a very great ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... his kindred and friends, and set before them the children, and, with his eyes full of tears, said thus to them: "It was an unlucky fate that took away from me these children's fathers, which children are recommended to me by that natural commiseration which their orphan condition requires; however, I will endeavor, though I have been a most unfortunate father, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... front to itself; becomes a new Minotaur, though in reduced shape. This is Part First of the Battle of Zorndorf; Friedrich—on the edge of great disaster at one moment, but miraculously saved—has still the other half to do (unlucky that he left no Bridges on the Mutzel), and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... that sort was Sir Charles Napier," said the major. "He was one of the most unlucky men that ever lived in the way of getting hit. In every great battle in which he took part during the Peninsular War he was severely wounded. But at Meeanee and Dubba, where he was in command, and almost everything depended upon him, and where, too, he exposed himself in a manner which made ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... culture. It's strange, you know. . . . Judging by every sign, there is no intellectual stagnation in our capital cities; there is a movement—so there must be real people there too; but for some reason they always send us such men as I would rather not see. It's an unlucky town!" ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... interfered with the creature's movements thus far, though some of the men had run back to the Barracks for firearms, and just then unlucky Wun Sing came round the corner of the building and met it face to face. He had run at top speed in the opposite direction from that the beast seemed taking when he had first espied it, issuing from his room beyond the kitchen. Seeing it headed ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond

... his sentry-duty between eleven and one, he found his comrade Klitzing singularly depressed, and after a time the clerk confided to him that he had been very unlucky all the day before. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... said the kindly old gentleman, "there is some unlucky family difference between Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and I dare say the talk was unpleasant to Adele; if I were you, I wouldn't allude to it again; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... wit and wisdom and the information of Dona Rita. She had taken a little furnished house on the Prado for the good of the cause— Por el Rey! She was always taking little houses for somebody's good, for the sick or the sorry, for broken-down artists, cleaned- out gamblers, temporarily unlucky speculators—vieux amis—old friends, as she used to explain apologetically, with a shrug ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... understand. And now, may I beg that for the rest of your natural life"—here she paused, and bit her lip in vexation that the unlucky phrase had escaped her—"you will speak ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... This unlucky evening she had shone as the most brilliant belle in the crowded assemblage of the fair and fashionable whom Madam Raynor had gathered into her splendid rooms. Tired at length with the gay scene around her, she had strolled off alone into the conservatory, and leaning against a pillar watched from ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... of the present carries with him more vital energy than his predecessors, is more athletic in his struggles with the unlucky wights he visits, and can coerce mortals to do his will by the laying on of hands as well as by the look or word. He speaks with more emphasis and authority, as well as with more human naturalness, than the earlier ghosts. He has not only all the force he possessed ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... London preacher; Francis Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, Mapletoft's son-in-law;[91] Sir Richard Blackmore, another physician of note, and, like Mapletoft, most zealous in all plans for doing good, but whose unlucky taste for writing dull verses brought down upon him the unmerciful castigation of the wits; John Johnson of Cranbrook, with whose writings on the Eucharistic Sacrifice Nelson most warmly sympathised; Edmund Halley, the mathematician, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... was somewhere else, after being on that boat a year and a half—he was born lucky." Yes, I was somewhere else. I am so superstitious that I have always been afraid to have business dealings with certain relatives and friends of mine because they were unlucky people. All my life I have stumbled upon lucky chances of large size, and whenever they were wasted it was because of my own stupidity and carelessness. And so I have felt entirely certain that the machine would turn up trumps ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... he thought. "I suppose I am lucky to wake at all in this. Or unlucky—it isn't much of a business to come back to." He looked up and saw the downs shining against the blue, like the Alps on a picture-postcard. "That means another forty miles or so, I suppose," he continued grimly. "Lord knows what I did yesterday. Walked ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... lucky and unlucky days was prevalent. The fragment of a calendar shows each day marked good or evil, or ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... accompanied by a regular movement of his outstretched thumbs behind the ears, and during which his fat face glowed the brightest red, was unhappily greeted with a wild burst of laughter from all present, which excited the unlucky master to the most furious wrath. With studied cruelty this wrath was greeted by those, who until then had shamelessly flattered him, with the most extravagant mockery, until the poor wretch at last absolutely ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... time so good that the ring never pricked him at all; and this made him so cheerful and pleasant in his humor that everybody called him "Happy Prince Cherry." But one unlucky day he was out hunting and found no sport, which vexed him so much that he showed his ill temper by his looks and ways. He fancied his ring felt very tight and uncomfortable, but as it did not prick him he took no heed of this: until, re-entering ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... an unlucky day," exclaimed the captain later, looking at his watch as we came within sight of a railroad bridge with a draw in it that was then being closed for an approaching train. "It is now four o'clock, and, according to the official rules, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... and last," said he, with a smile. "They say that thirteen is an unlucky number. Could you spare me a drink ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... unlucky essay at holiday-making she wrote home guardedly: the most tell-tale sentence in her letter was that in which she said she would rather not go to Godmother's again in the meantime. But there was such a lack of warmth in her account of the visit ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in some stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; a mode of satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling, perhaps, every generation of poets ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... too easy to say, 'Don't let's make distinctions in danger!' Wait a bit. Since the beginning, there are some of those others who've got killed by an unlucky chance; among us there are some that are still alive by a lucky chance. It isn't the same thing, that, seeing that when you're dead, it's for ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... a tranquil, lucrative employment, and had he stuck to the Rapture of Contemplation, he might have ended his days by the fall. But in an unlucky hour he undertook to feed ten Irish kings and their armies for three weeks anend on three cows. Even so he might have escaped, had he only failed. Alas! As it was, the ten kings had no sooner signed peace and drunk together than they marched up to St. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... with or without quarter for the besieged; leading forays for the sake of plunder, with or without the incentive of revenge; crushing peasant rebellions by hanging such few peasants as escaped the sword; and at all times robbing every unlucky merchant who chanced to come their way. It was a curious twist, that reversion to savagery, from the Roman epoch: when the Rhone Valley was inhabited by a civilized people who encouraged commerce and who had a genuine love for the arts. And, after all—unless they had some ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... all the time he's hunting for gold. I say, you see if Mr Raydon don't keep an eye on us for fear we should tell old Gunson. My! wouldn't he like to know of our find. I can't understand how it is that he who knows all about it should be so unlucky, and you—" ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... bright eyes steadfast with amazement. "I know you now, miss. Now I knows you. To think what a set of blind newts us must be! And you the very moral of your poor father, in a female kind of way! To be sure, how well I knew the Captain! A nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more unlucky one." ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... this discrepancy in fortune. Again, a disaster which destroys a single individual may alter the whole course of a survivor's career. But the devotees of the Goddess of Luck do not mean this at all. They hold that some men are born lucky and others unlucky, as though some Fortune presided at their birth; and that, irrespective of all merits, success goes to those on whom Fortune smiles and defeat to those on whom she frowns. Or at least luck is regarded as a kind of attribute of a man like a capacity ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... unfortunate mistake, which would have been a death-blow to any Beacon Street housekeeper—there were one hundred more guests than there were plates, and—what it might be hoped would be quite unnecessary to state—that the unlucky De trop "bore the disappointment with the most admirable good-breeding, AND RETIRED FROM THE HALL WITHOUT NOISE OR DISTURBANCE." (Noble army of martyrs! Let a monument more durable than brass rise in the hearts of their countrymen ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... distances between them a second time they were greater than at first, which betokens the best of luck to him whose house is to be there. I suppose that they will bide in these places now while Grimsby is a town, for, as every one knows, it is unlucky to move ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... brother," said Umslopogaas. "Come now, some of you, and let us look at this dead girl. Perhaps it is the Lily, and if so that is unlucky for us, for I do not know what tale we shall tell to ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... that this step was taken: Duchess Eleanora, in particular, expressed dissatisfaction with the match, and feared, perhaps superstitiously, the portent of a second unlucky alliance. Anyhow the preparations for the nuptial day, and the pageants which accompanied it, drew off the thoughts of all from ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... spirit of the plague that passed, taking with it the breath of the unlucky and the unfit: and in the hut on Lonesome three were dead—a gaunt mountaineer, a gaunt daughter, and a gaunt son. Later, the mother, too, "jes' kind o' got tired," as little Chad said, and soon to her worn hands and feet came ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... clause in their contracts whereby an author must secure them against damage from any "immoral" matter in his book. They read and approve the manuscript, they print the book and sell it—but if it is unlucky enough to attract the comstockian lightning, the author has the whole burden to bear,[73] and if they seek safety and economy by yielding, as often happens, he must consent to the mutilation or even the suppression of ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... have been an unlucky misunderstanding between you and mother yesterday. But I hope this need not make any real difference in our friendship. Because I think we have always understood each other, haven't we? Of course if my parents prefer that we should not be about together quite so much, there is no help ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... months, and he had found nothing witty to say about it, and at first sight Mr. Cibber had done its business. And on such men he and his portrait were to attempt a preposterous delusion. Then there was Snarl, who wrote critiques on painting, and guided the national taste. The unlucky exhibitor was in a cold sweat. He led the way, like a thief going to ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... the advice of those who remonstrated against his advance; and reproaching his chiefs, as men who out of mere laziness and a love of ease advised him to let go the kingdom of Persia when he had almost made himself master of it, left the river on his left hand, and led by unlucky guides, determined to proceed towards the inland parts of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... Traill had the glimmer of an idea to take with him on this unlucky business. An hour before the opening of court he crossed the bridge into High Street, which was then as picturesquely Gothic and decaying and overpopulated as the Cowgate, but high-set, wind-swept and sun-searched, all the way up the sloping mile from Holyrood ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... fulfill. But, on his return, when they flocked round him for their various articles, to their surprise he had only answered the order of one of them. Upon their expressing their disappointment he addressed them thus: 'Ladies,' said he, 'I have to inform you of a most unlucky accident that occurred to your orders. I was not unmindful of them, I assure you; so one fine day I took your orders all out of my pocketbook and arranged them on the top of the companionway, but, just as they were all arranged, a sudden gust of wind took them all overboard.' ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... sir," said the Sergeant sternly; "you told me the other day that it's unlucky to break a looking-glass; ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... word; for his uncle, Ludovico Sforza, never left the King of France for an instant. But at the very moment when Charles VIII was getting up to go, the door opened, and a young woman appeared and threw herself at the king's feet; she was the wife of the unlucky John Galeazzo, and came to entreat his cousin to do nothing against her father Alfonso, nor against her brother Ferdinand. At sight of her; Sforza scowled with an anxious and threatening aspect, far he knew not what impression might be produced ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I, then—I'm unlucky the day. But I won't be saying so, for fear of spreading ill luck on my faction. Pray now what kind of a fair is it?—Would there be any good signs of a fight, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... lots as to whom of us should climb the tree, Benedicto was the one selected by fate. Benedicto was certainly born under an unlucky star; when anything nasty or unpleasant happened to anybody it was always to poor Benedicto. After a lot of pressing he proceeded to go up the tree, uttering piercing yells as every moment great sauba ants bit his arms, legs or body. He was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... unlucky fourteenth century a marked religious revival extended over Europe. Perhaps men's sufferings had caused it. Many sects of reformers appeared, protesting sometimes against the discipline, sometimes the doctrines, of the Church. In Germany Nicholas of Basel established ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... been a more unlucky concurrence of circumstances than when these troops first came. The barracks were unfinished for want of laborers, the spell of weather the worst ever known within the memory of man, no stores of bread laid ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... left the cabin, closing the panel carefully behind him. Would he—or could he—he thought drearily, get back in Van Rycke's profit column again? Sargol had been unlucky as far as he was concerned. First he had made that stupid mistake and then he got sick and now—And now—what was the matter? Was it just the general attack of nerves over their voyage and the commitments which forced their haste, or was it something else? He could ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... left the boat an' began to push through the bushes, we went straight for the line of my musket, as I had expected. But by some unlucky chance it didn't explode, for I saw the line torn away by the men's legs, and heard the click o' the lock; so I fancy the priming had got damp and didn't catch. I was in a great quandary now what to do, for I couldn't concoct in my mind, in ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... unlucky marriage, for she was a dull, ignorant woman, with no feeling for her husband's high aims or superior powers, and the business was not a flourishing one; but he never manifested anything but warm affection and tenderness towards this very uncompanionable person, and perhaps, like most men ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... said the man. "'Ave a drink and pass the mess-tin round. There is only one bad shell, that's the one that 'its you, and if you're unlucky it'll come your way. The same about the bullet with your number on it; it can't miss you if it's made for you. And if ever you go into a charge—Think of your pals, matey!" he roared at the man who was greedily gulping down the contents of the mess-tin, ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... Hesiod was the founder of a more didactic sort of poetry. He is about a century later than the Iliad. Besides the Theogony, which treats of the origin of the gods and of nature, his Works and Days relates to the works which a farmer has to do, and the lucky or unlucky days for doing them. It contains doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness which ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Flinders would have been allowed to proceed to Port Jackson unchallenged but for the unlucky circumstance that, when the commissioners of the Admiralty paid an official visit of inspection to the ship, she was seen "seated in the captain's cabin without her bonnet."* (* Flinders' Papers.) They considered this to be "too open a declaration of that being ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... thine, another's wit, Mind well thou knowest what's meant by it; Nor let a lapsus linguae slip From out thy pert assuming lip, Till well thou knowest thy stolen song, Nor think a leg of lamb a tongue," He said—and quickly from the floor Straight kicked him through the unlucky door. ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... nature." Nelson was obliged to detain him until reinforcements arrived from England, because Calder was unwilling to undergo the apparent humiliation of leaving his flagship under charges, and she could not yet be spared. It was not the least of this unlucky man's misfortunes that he left the fleet just a week before the battle, where his conduct would undoubtedly have redeemed whatever of errors he may have committed. One of the last remarks Nelson made before the action began, was, "Hardy, what would poor Sir Robert Calder give to be ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... of these unwonted rigours, the wedding-party set out on their long journey. The royal brides of these days seem to have been singularly unlucky in the matter of weather. For one thing, they always travelled in the depths of winter. Elizabeth Gonzaga almost died of exhaustion after the sufferings of her journey from Mantua to Urbino in a violent tempest, which kept her ship tossing ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... it is almost due to me," said Wildeve. "Think what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to any man to have the banns forbidden: the double insult to a man unlucky enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no further in ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... own, than really there were. But what terrified him most of all, was his being an utter Stranger to Leonora; she had not the least knowledge of him but through mistake, and consequently could form no Idea of him to his Advantage. He look'd upon it as an unlucky thought in Aurelian to take upon him his Name, since possibly the Two Ladies were acquainted, and should they communicate to each other their Adventures; they might both reasonably suffer in their Opinions, and be thought ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve

... House was only a memory, and we were both men, Traddles and I met again. He had the same simple character and good temper as of old, and had, too, some of his old unlucky fortune, which clung to him always; yet notwithstanding that—as all of his trouble came from good-natured meddling with other people's affairs, for their benefit, I am not at all certain that I would not risk my chance of ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... myself ordained as priest; and, in troth, notwithstanding I was a beginner, and without any companion to help me, I did tolerably well, getting my meat and drink, and increasing my small capital, till I came to this unlucky place of Horncastle, where I was utterly ruined by the thaif in the rider's dress. And now, Shorsha, I am after telling you my history; perhaps you will now be telling me ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... served her with foot and hand, In every thing that she could dee, Till once, in an unlucky time, She threw her in ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick

... Himalaya mountains, the performance of my sacrifice being entirely within thy control, and then the adorable celestial saint Narada and Devasthana have also addressed exquisite and well-meaning words for our well being. No unlucky man in times of great tribulation and distress, has ever the good fortune to secure the services of such preceptors and friends approved by all virtuous men. Thus addressed by the king, those great saints, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of no plot at present," he said, "but after to-day's unlucky events one can be sure of nothing. Here is the corner of your street; I will bid you good-night, and once more I repeat my warning. Guard yourself, and sleep with ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx

... this in a tone of great anxiety, for to see one's own guardian spirit was thought unlucky, and a sign that the person seeing it ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... allusion to the world-wide superstition that he who is lucky at love is unlucky at cards ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... said Mrs. MacAlister hurriedly, as they approached the shattered letter-box; 'it hass all to remain as it iss until the chief constable and the laird hev seen it; and they will be bringing the Sheriff from Stornwell; it iss an unlucky day for a ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... that no family is permitted to use as food the animal from which it derives its name. We have seen that a similar rule prevails, as far as hunger and scarcity of victuals permit it to be obeyed, among the natives of Australia. The Intchwa stock in Ashantee and Fantee is particularly unlucky, because its members may not eat the dog, "much relished by native epicures, and therefore a serious privation". Equally to be pitied were the ancient Egyptians, who, if they belonged to the district of the sheep, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... is signed Pilotel. Pilotel, the savage commissioner! He who arrested Monsieur Chaudey, and who pocketed eight hundred and fifteen francs found in Monsieur Chaudey's drawers. Ah! Pilotel, if by some unlucky adventure you were to succumb behind a barricade, you would cry like Nero: "Qualis artifex pereo!" But let us leave the author to criticise the work. A Gavroche, not the Gavroche of the Miserables, but the boy ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... hard thinking," insisted Holmes. "Did you take that handkerchief out again until the unlucky time just after you had turned away from the board ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... intercourse with a husband, the end whereof is bitter repentance, because I am betrothed to the true Husband." The bridegroom answered also in the same spirit, very naturally to the dismay of the King, who sent for the sorcerer whom he had asked to bless his unlucky daughter. But Judas Thomas had already left the city and at his inn the King's stewards found only the flute-player, sitting and weeping because he had not taken her with him. She was glad, however, when she heard what had happened, and hastened to the young couple, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... let you drive me barefoot before you through the street yonder. I'd let every soul in The Corner know that I have no pride where you're concerned. I'll do whatever you wish—with one exception—and that one is the unlucky thing you ask. Pardner, you mustn't ask for Jack Landis! Anything else I'll work like a slave to get for you: I'll fight your battles, I'll serve you in any way you name: but don't ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... "I always was unlucky," said Mrs. Alwynn, faintly. "I had a swelled face up the Rhine on our honey-moon. Things always happen like that with me. At any rate,"—after a pause—"there is one thing. We ought to try and look at the ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... plunge. Sam, it would seem, was no subscriber to the tenets of the Temperance Society, for upon this occasion his perceptions were far from being clear; and having neglected to spring in his usual adroit style, the unlucky wight never again appeared. The interest which this poor creature excited, both here and at Niagara, was astonishing. His very exit (than which nothing could be more natural) was considered somewhat mysterious, as his body was not found; and some time subsequent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... that they should revenge themselves on the unlucky bones of those who have not had ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen

... "O Heavens! How unlucky I am to be so clumsy and to express so ill what I think!" cried Germain. "Marie, you don't love me. That is the long and short of it. You find me too simple and too dull. If you loved me at all, you would not see my faults so clearly. But ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... native tools in the village, and a rough wall was constructed of the materials; a trench five feet deep and eight feet wide was simultaneously dug across the entrance. At six o'clock, just as the wall was finished, an unlucky shot struck one of the doorposts, and the gate fell, dragging the other post with it. A distant yell of ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... with which the unlucky Vance consoled himself, "it is something to have seen the laziest ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam

... from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House of Jehu ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... Monsieur de l'Estorade to do me the favor of stating that, to his knowledge, I have been absolutely forced by sufficient reasons to absent myself? He will, of course, understand that I ought not to explain under any circumstances the nature of the affair which has taken me out of the country at this unlucky time; but I am certain it will be all-sufficient if a man of Monsieur de l'Estorade's position and character guarantees the necessity ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... would not have come into this form of life (into a human body). But to rise from things here to the recollection of those, is not an easy matter [173] for every soul; neither for those which then had but a brief view of things there; nor for such as were unlucky in their descent hither, so that, through the influence of certain associations, turning themselves to what is not right, they have forgotten the sacred forms which then they saw. Few souls, in truth, remain, to which the gift of ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... temper was exasperated against the man to whom he owed everything, nor did the sight of his knapsack and lute, sent from the Chien Noir, lessen the irritation. Few things feed the flame of a man's anger as do his own faults, and in every string of the unlucky toy—for it was little more—he saw a sharp reminder of his own false pretence to flick the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... the expense of the inhabitants, and often, in the houses of the mayor or tax-registrar, indulge in the pleasure of breaking everything to pieces. Should any public officer remonstrate with them they shout, "At the aristocrat!" One of these unlucky counselors is struck on the back with the but-end of a musket, and two others have guns aimed at them; the chiefs of the expedition are in no better predicament, and, according to their own admission, if they are at the head of the mob it is to make sure they themselves will not be pillaged ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Madame d'Estampes continuing her spiteful artifices, I requested the Cardinal of Ferrara to procure leave for me to make a tour to Italy, promising to return whenever the king should think proper to signify his pleasure. I departed in an unlucky hour, leaving under the care of my journeymen my castle and all my effects; but all the way I could not refrain ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... came o'er his ear 'like the sweet south;' it unmanned him quite. He scarcely knew where he was. He trembled from head to foot. His colour deserted him, and the unlucky hat fell to the floor; and yet she stood before him, awaiting his reply, calm, quite calm, serious, apparently a little anxious. The duchess was in earnest conversation with his mother. Lord Montfort had walked up to Miss Grandison, and was engaged in arranging a pattern for her. Ferdinand ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... and said: "Few words are best; and whereas I wot not if my words will avail thee aught, and since they will save our lives, I will tell thee truly. We are men of the Burg whom these green-coated thieves drave out of the Burg on an unlucky day. Well, some of us, of whom I was one, fetched a compass and crossed the water that runneth through Upmeads by the Red Bridge, and so gat us into the Wood Debateable through the Uplands. There we struck a bargain with the main band of strong-thieves of the wood, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... a confiscated Royalist estate, near New Rochelle, three hundred acres of good land, with the necessary fences and buildings upon it. Pennsylvania voted him five hundred pounds, currency. And the Virginians were talking about making a similar donation, when an unlucky pamphlet from Paine appeared, demolishing the claim of Virginia to the Western country. This publication changed the views of the chivalry, and Paine lost his grant. He owned, besides, a small place in Bordentown,—a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... way down. A deputation of Lapps came from the tents, bringing reindeer venison, and half of a fine Gammel cheese. Before Erica had had time to pour out a glass of corn-brandy for each of this dwarfish party, in token of thanks, and because it is considered unlucky to send away Lapps without a a treat, other mountain dwellers came with offerings of tydder, roer, ryper, and jerper [Note 2]: so that the dresser was loaded with game enough to feed ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... were baiting. Four of them fell to my share, and we drove off with many handsome expressions of regret at being obliged to leave but one for the four other carriages. Your travelling is an epitome of life, in which the lucky look upon the unlucky with ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... directions, he was entered of the Inner-Temple, in order to be bred to the Bar, for which his father had always intended him: but instead of the Law, he followed his own inclinations, which carried him to the study of polite literature, and to the company of the genteelest people in town. This proved unlucky; for the father, by degrees, grew uneasy at his son's not getting himself called to the Bar, nor properly applying to the Law, according to his reiterated directions and request; and the son complained of the strictness ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... his brain was so excited, told me that he experienced a most uncontrollable desire to kill or injure some one; so much so, that he could at times hardly restrain himself from the action, and was obliged to refrain from all stimulants, lest, in an unlucky moment, he might commit himself. Townley, who murdered the young lady of his affections, for which he was sentenced to be imprisoned in a lunatic asylum for life, poisoned his brain with brandy and soda-water before he committed the rash act. The brandy stimulated into action certain portions ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... long in finding Indian tracks, and accompanied by six men, he went forward to locate the redskin camp. They had proceeded but a short distance when they sighted a small party of Indians, with horses grazing. There were just thirteen Indians—an unlucky number—and Will feared that they might discover the scouting party should it attempt to return to the main command. He had but to question his companions to find them ready to follow wheresoever he might lead, and they moved cautiously toward the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... do to keep myself decently. I've no right to dream of asking any one—to say nothing of Sylvia—to marry me. I should only be rushing into temptation if I saw any more of her. She's not for a poor beggar like me, who was born unlucky. Well, whining won't do any good—let's have a ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... course of preparation for the learned professions, especially for the Church, used to be ever recurring in conversation to the staple metaphysical questions,—occasionally, no doubt, much in the style of Jack Lizard in the Guardian, who comforted his mother, when the worthy lady was so unlucky as to scald her hand with the boiling tea-kettle, by assuring her there was no such thing as heat, but which at least served to show that this branch of liberal education fully occupied the mind of the individuals ostensibly engaged in mastering it; and we remember a subsequent time, when ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... you treat me thus, Try to kill my father? No. Did I from the window throw That unlucky Icarus? Is my drink somniferous? Do I dream? ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... adhere to the old copies, is unable to restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator some unlucky moment ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... enthroned in awful state when the recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men with their badges, while the luckless culprit was brought in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... deserves—I allude to what Chopin says of having had "a presentiment." In superstitiousness he is a true child of his country, and all the enlightenment of France did not succeed in weaning him from his belief in dreams, presentiments, good and evil days, lucky and unlucky numbers, &c. This is another romantic feature in the character of the composer; a dangerous one in the pursuit of science, but advantageous rather than otherwise in the pursuit of art. Later on I shall have to return to this subject and relate some anecdotes, here I shall confine myself ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... lady desires to be introduced to another, the hostess should ask if she may do so, of course unobtrusively. Sometimes this places one lady in an unlucky position towards another. She does not know exactly what to do. Mrs. So-and-so may have the gift of exclusiveness, and may desire that Mrs. That-and-that shall not have the privilege of bowing to her. Gurowski says, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr. The Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Theophile should be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop. In an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, "Why, confound the fellow, he is not her father!" There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. So he had National ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... by; waste time &c. (be inactive) 683; let slip through the fingers, lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Adj. ill-timed, mistimed; ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred; untimely, unseasonable; out of date, out of season; inopportune, timeless, intrusive, untoward, mal a propos[Fr], unlucky, inauspicious, infelicitous, unbefitting, unpropitious, unfortunate, unfavorable; unsuited &c. 24; inexpedient &c. 647. unpunctual &c. (late) 133; too late for; premature &c. (early) 132; too soon for; wise after the event, monday morning quarterbacking, twenty- ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Hexameter verse: ours are extremely ill qualified for that service, because they super-abound in short syllables. Secondly, the bulk of our monosyllables are arbitrary with regard to length, which is an unlucky circumstance in Hexameter. * * * In Latin and Greek Hexameter invariable sounds direct and ascertain the melody. English Hexameter would be destitute of melody, unless by artful pronunciation; because of necessity the bulk of its sounds must be arbitrary. The pronunciation is easy ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... name, has had the misfortune unintentionally to shoot a roe-buck, belonging to the forest of his master, Count of Eberbach. Baculus, who is on the eve of his wedding with a young girl, named Gretchen, is much afraid, when the consequences of his unlucky shot show themselves in the shape of a summons to the castle, where he is looked on as a poacher, and is in danger of losing his position. His bride offers to entreat the Count to pardon him, but the jealous {273} old schoolmaster will not allow ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... continuity of the tale. He was a little disturbed, also, once or twice, by the general, who fell asleep, and breathed rather hard, to the great horror and annoyance of Lady Lillycraft. In a long and tender love scene, also, which was particularly to her ladyship's taste, the unlucky general, having his head a little sunk upon his breast, kept making a sound at regular intervals, very much like the word pish, long drawn out. At length he made an odd abrupt guttural sound, that suddenly awoke him; he hemmed, looked about with ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... languished. Somehow or other, the chill fact that there was a grave quarrel between two at the table, and those two man and wife, insinuated itself into the spirits of the guests. There began to be lulls,—fatal lulls. And in one of these, some unlucky voice was heard to murmur, "Such a meeting of man and wife ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... I was just thinking about some of our chaps aboard the Naughtylass, growling and grumbling at her for being an unlucky ship, and no fighting to be had. They wouldn't find fault if they was out here, ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... touch of chagrin. I liked her best so, for she never looked daintier. "With a bit of luck, Master Wheatman," she said whimsically, "there will surely come a time when you'll be wrong and I right. Then, sir, look out for crowing. I've never been so unlucky with a man in my life. But ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... have said something kind about not reproaching herself, but Miss Meadows interposed with, 'It was very unlucky, to be sure—Mr. Kendal never failed them before, not that she would wish—but she had always understood that to let young people run about late in the evening by themselves—not that she meant anything, but it was very unfortunate—if she had only been aware—Betty should have come ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... prophetic,—and sent by a merciful Providence to deter me from attending the pilgrimage at this peculiar time—perhaps on this particular day: to-morrow the spell might be broken, the danger past, and the difference of a single day could be nothing. Just at this moment an unlucky hare, starting from an adjoining thicket, scudded across my path, as if to fill up the measure of these ominous predictions. I paused, and my foot was on the very turn to the rightabout, when instantly a thought struck me which produced a reaction ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... Standish," said Gavin, reading his thoughts as readily as spoken words. "Don't be sore at Roke. He didn't let me get away. He did his best to keep me. And my coming back isn't as unlucky for you as it seems. If the snakes had gotten me, there's a Secret Service chap over there who would have had an interesting report to make. And you'd have joined Hade and Roke in a murder trial. So, you see, things ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... disappeared beyond the horizon. I thought that an unlucky outcome for the Emden was possible, also a landing by the enemy on Keeling Island, at least for the purpose of landing the wounded and taking on provisions. As, according to the statements of the Englishmen, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... soliloquized. "It is a mystery to me why John puts up with it. He's free to go when he chooses. I'm sure I'd clear out if I wasn't such a good-for-nothing. The governor is getting to be more like a bear than a human being, it's a dog's life for everybody unlucky enough to be under the same ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... Well, one unlucky Friday afternoon he was hard at work at this employment, and as was usual with all the hands in the moulding shop at such times, he was stripped naked from the waist upwards. He was gallantly supporting one end of one ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... laughed. Never before had he heard the Virginian tell a humorous anecdote, and he was not a little surprised as well as pleased, for it showed that Jack, who had grumbled a great deal during the unlucky and unpleasant cruise down the coast, was in better spirits now they were at last in the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... its rider lying beside the moaning boy who was unlucky enough to be in a street where a score of ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... "Storms are unlucky to me," she said, listening until the sullen roll died away. "Why should we have ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... impressed Sophie's eighteen years, and was somewhat timidly but graciously accepted as an affianced suitor. It was thought at King's Norton that Mrs. Tarne had done a better stroke of business in the first year of her widowhood than her late husband had done—always an unlucky wretch, Timothy—in the whole course of his life. And now Sophie Tarne and her mother were staying for a few days longer at Maythorpe Farm ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... considering the embarrassments thrown in the way by the guardians of the temples, who seemed disposed to secrete the treasures, rather than despoil these sacred depositories to satisfy the cupidity of the strangers. It was unlucky, too, for the Indian monarch, that much of the gold, and that of the best quality, consisted of flat plates or tiles, which, however valuable, lay in a compact form that did little towards swelling the heap. But an immense ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... petty orthodox principality belonging to the same clan as Tsin and the Emperor, and belonging also to the Tsin vassal system. This so enraged the new ruler of Tsin that he dyed his white mourning clothes black, so as to avenge the insult, and yet not to outrage the rites: moreover, white was unlucky in warfare: victorious over Ts'in, he then proceeded to mourn for his father, and ever after that black was adopted, by way of memento, as the national colour of Tsin. In 626 and 622 the Emperor sent high officers to represent him at Lu funerals, and to carry gems ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... Parravicin is here," replied Nizza. "I have seen him. But that is not all. I am unlucky enough to have attracted the king's fancy. He has terrified ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... neither particularly interesting nor beautiful, and we did not visit it further than to inspect the ancient observatory built by Jey Singh, with its huge sundial, whose gnomon stands 80 feet above the ground! What we are pleased to call a superstitious attention to times lucky or unlucky has given to astronomical observations in the East an unscientific importance which they have not had for centuries in Europe.[3] A slight attack of fever prevented me from going to Amber; so I stayed at home, peacefully absorbing quinine, subsequently extracting ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator at some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... jewelled hand. "Madame, that is true, for until I met you I never knew how unlucky ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats



Words linked to "Unlucky" :   unfortunate, luckless, jinxed, hexed



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