How to Use unhappily in a Sentence

unhappily

adverb
  • They were unhappily married for two years.
  • That to me seems a heck of a lot better than living unhappily and in a state of limbo.
    — Jackie Pilossoph, chicagotribune.com, 26 Apr. 2017
  • As long as a person is unhappily single, there must be something wrong.
    — Morgan Parker, ELLE, 4 June 2022
  • The tutor laughed at the pair of them, sitting there at the table so unhappily, just because of maths.
    — Tessa Hadley, The New Yorker, 17 July 2023
  • As the train pulled out of the station, screeching wheels drowned out the sound of a cat meowing unhappily.
    — Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2022
  • Jay and Linda heard about a donkey housed unhappily an hour north, whose spouse likewise had died.
    — Jane Shore, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2020
  • One breakthrough that’s been welcomed by the unhappily hirsute is laser hair removal.
    — Fiorella Valdesolo, WSJ, 31 Aug. 2017
  • But their lives were often upended by their deeply unhappily father.
    — Sam Gillette, PEOPLE.com, 30 Oct. 2019
  • The unhappily married women who traveled to Sioux Falls did so in style.
    — Jennifer Wilson, The New Republic, 28 June 2022
  • One of the many ironies here is that on the eve of the election the two sides were moving, not unhappily, toward an optimistic détente.
    — Gregory Krieg, CNN, 1 June 2017
  • Autumn works in a supermarket with her cousin and is unhappily pregnant.
    — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 8 Apr. 2020
  • How many of my life decisions have been made in reaction to feeling unhappily married?
    — Liana Finck, New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Cruz stars as Clara, an unhappily married mother of three coping with mental health issues.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Nov. 2022
  • Janka, as she was known, was unhappily married to another man, a film director.
    — Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 29 May 2017
  • After imbibing too much at a party, an unhappily single woman falls into bed with the fiance of her best friend.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 Oct. 2019
  • Her unhappily married parents divorced when Diana was 7, and she was sent to boarding school two years later.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Aug. 2021
  • Brown spent nine years with the Steelers, being named to the Pro Bowl in seven of them, but his time there ended unhappily.
    — Ben Shpigel, New York Times, 10 Sep. 2019
  • Wilde stars as one half of a struggling couple, unhappily married to a character played by Seth Rogen.
    — Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times, 26 June 2026
  • This is, unhappily, a lesson that needs to be relearned anew each generation, like the ravages of inflation, the risks of public debt, and the true price of war.
    — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 18 Feb. 2022
  • According to legend, this dish was dreamed up by an unhappily married woman named Ezo who was trying to win over her mother-in-law via her stomach.
    — Lisa Morrow, CNN, 25 Mar. 2022
  • Yet when so many human beings embrace the destiny of becoming parents, whether happily or unhappily, what right does any one person have to refuse it?
    — Adam Kirsch, The Atlantic, 13 May 2018
  • When the Nazis ask Lelong for dresses for their wives and girlfriends, Dior objects but unhappily complies.
    — Lili Loofbourow, Washington Post, 14 Feb. 2024
  • Even high productivity numbers may not be enough to pay the government’s debts, and there will be many people unhappily and under-employed.
    — Allison Schrager, Twin Cities, 8 Mar. 2026
  • Both Rothman and Rosen were unhappily married in the time between the war and their meeting in 1990.
    — Sarah Schreiber, Good Housekeeping, 11 Nov. 2016
  • Looking unhappily at him, Yura took a half-empty pack of Astra cigarettes and a box of matches out of his pants pocket.
    — Vladimir Sorokin, The New Yorker, 27 Sep. 2021
  • When this season began, Claire was unhappily married in Boston with dreary Frank.
    — Roxane Gay, Glamour, 10 Dec. 2017
  • In her second photo, Simpson shows off her adorable dog Dixie, who’s (much more unhappily) receiving a shower.
    — Henry Chandonnet, Peoplemag, 17 July 2023
  • His thoughts about the environment, the future, and parenting come into sharp relief through his current job at a restaurant, where he is unhappily employed.
    — Jade S. Sasser, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2024
  • The idea was that a gentleman could fly down to the Caribbean, unhappily married, and return home a few days later blissfully single.
    — Robert Goulder, Forbes, 18 June 2021
  • The number also assumes that most charging stations will be in good working order, something that EV drivers unhappily have not found.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 23 Dec. 2022

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

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