How to Use unfortunate in a Sentence

unfortunate

1 of 2 adjective
  • It's unfortunate that he couldn't be here for your birthday.
  • He has an unfortunate tendency to show up late.
  • She was unfortunate enough to have been chosen as an example.
  • There are some lines in that script and movie that are unfortunate.
    — Shania Russell, Entertainment Weekly, 15 Feb. 2026
  • That's an unfortunate way to end the year.
    — Alan Gionet, CBS News, 2 Jan. 2026
  • Hap, the root, means luck of an unfortunate kind.
    — Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026
  • But the tale took an unfortunate turn.
    — Pete Grathoff, Kansas City Star, 9 Apr. 2026
  • The unfortunate thing is that the impact has to be there.
    — Kate Erbland, IndieWire, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The unfortunate part is that Vinik won’t be there to see it.
    — Joe Smith, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2026
  • And yes, there is the unfortunate elephant in the room.
    — Pete Sweeney may 22, Kansas City Star, 22 May 2026
  • But that’s unfortunate for the team.
    — Christian Babcock, Mercury News, 18 Sep. 2025
  • This decade has been a series of unfortunate events.
    — Gary Baum, HollywoodReporter, 2 Oct. 2025
  • But, yeah, that would be unfortunate.
    — Ricky Sayer, CBS News, 2 May 2026
  • Very unfortunate that Seixas got banged up.
    — Fluto Shinzawa, New York Times, 16 June 2026
  • So that's why this was kind of like the last frontier of a place for things to grow wild, which is unfortunate.
    — Cara Lynn Shultz, PEOPLE, 20 Apr. 2026
  • The tipped pass is something that was unfortunate.
    — Doug Kyed, Boston Herald, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Ringo headlined the unfortunate part of the list.
    — Justin Grasso, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Aug. 2025
  • There’s plenty of programs that have had unfortunate starts and have been able to turn things around.
    — Manny Navarro, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2025
  • While loud sounds won’t cause flat cakes, there are reasons for this unfortunate outcome.
    — Bestreviews, Chicago Tribune, 29 May 2026
  • While unfortunate, this doesn’t mean your amaryllis is destined for the trash can.
    — Cori Sears, The Spruce, 14 Jan. 2026
  • That didn’t happen and that is unfortunate.
    — Marcos Breton, Sacbee.com, 24 Mar. 2026
  • That unfortunate ending was more than enough.
    — Sam Amick, New York Times, 11 Mar. 2026
  • When told of the unfortunate jinx moment, Fowler laughed.
    — Arpon Basu, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2025
  • This was unfortunate for Norris, but luck tends to return to the mean.
    — Rob Reed, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025
  • Part of the issue is the Rays have had some unfortunate injuries.
    — John Romano, The Orlando Sentinel, 29 June 2026
  • An unfortunate injury for one of the best players on this defense.
    — Colton Pouncy, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2025
  • Noni Madueke has been fabulous but unfortunate that he’s missed out on the last few games.
    — Handbrake Off, New York Times, 17 Oct. 2025
  • In an unfortunate twist, Maekar during a battle against some of his own.
    — Skyler Trepel, PEOPLE, 22 June 2026
  • The clip was recorded two months before Morales would meet that unfortunate fate.
    — Christopher Rudolph, PEOPLE, 9 May 2026
  • Obviously, the whole thing is kind of unfortunate in a way.
    — Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 30 Mar. 2026

unfortunate

2 of 2 noun
  • Our family name, Ramirez, is the same name of these unfortunates who did not make it across the river.
    — Dp Opinion, The Denver Post, 30 June 2019
  • These unfortunates spent hours each day chewing tough roots, choking down leaves and stems, munching on tiny berries and gorging on rare windfalls of meat, bone marrow and worms.
    — Nathan H. Lents, WSJ, 13 Apr. 2018
  • One unfortunate fled to China, only to be arrested and sent home, whereupon he was promptly dispatched to a camp.
    — The Economist, 13 Mar. 2021
  • As the threads of society break down, the poor unfortunates who survived the initial barrage don't so much live as merely exist in the post-apocalyptic ruins.
    — Peter Bright, Ars Technica, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Worse yet, the percentage of such unfortunates who are unrepresented by counsel has skyrocketed in recent decades.
    — Jed S. Rakoff, Slate Magazine, 31 July 2017
  • The film's title is a shape representing the meeting point between the physical world and the one beyond; hairy, patient moths seem to hold the souls of some unfortunates, though why some people meet this fate is unclear.
    — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 July 2019
  • Hundreds of unfortunates—hikers, climbers, skiers, snowboarders—die in the Austrian Alps each year, but these fatalities rarely result in criminal charges.
    — William Finnegan, New Yorker, 29 June 2026
  • But before that, Wilkerson would spend that year haranguing unfortunates in the Hollywood community who would go on to become targets of the blacklist, often losing their careers.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 28 July 2017
  • Humor is generally the province of trolls; think of the motley assemblage of unfortunates in the slovenly writers’ room on 30 Rock, and that gives you an accurate picture of the setting in which most good jokes and satire are created in America.
    — David Kamp, vanityfair.com, 7 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unfortunate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: