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misfortune

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Etymology and origin of the English word misfortune

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1441 Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council
Ultimate origin
Latin fors
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English fortune
English misfortune

Pronunciation

  • UK: /mɪsˈfɔːtʃuːn/[1]
  • US: /mɪsˈfɔɹt͡ʃən/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English mis- + fortune,[2][3][4][5][6] the prefix meaning "bad, wrong".[3] The OED suggests it was perhaps modelled on Anglo-Norman meschance, also meschance in Middle French, the source of mischance.[2] The OED, the Shorter Oxford and Etymonline take the prefix as the native English one,[2][4][3] whereas Hoad files the word under the prefix from French.[7] Fortune is from Old French fortune (“lot, good fortune, misfortune”), from Latin fortūna (“chance, fate, good luck”), from fors (“chance, luck”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bad luck, adverse fortune: 1441, in the proceedings of the English Privy Council, which worried at the great loss to the king yif þat any mysfortune come þerto.[2][8] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century, with the sense of an unfortunate event.[3] A verb misfortune, to come to grief, is recorded slightly earlier, from about 1425, and went out of use in the early 17th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

From bad luck in general the word soon came to mean a single unlucky event (about 1485), and by about 1500 it was used of adversity for which the sufferer is not to blame.[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as "calamity; ill luck; want of good fortune".[9] The proverb that misfortunes never come singly is recorded in English from 1611, in Cotgrave's dictionary, and the OED compares a French saying of the 14th century.[2] From 1756, in Scottish legal papers, to fall into or have a misfortune was a euphemism for becoming pregnant outside marriage, and the word came to mean the illegitimate child itself;[2][4][3] the English Dialect Dictionary records this use from Scotland to Somerset.[10] In Somerset misfortune meat was the meat of an animal that had died by accident or had been killed to save it from dying.[10]

Timeline

  • c. 1425 – the verb misfortune, to come to grief (obsolete by 1615).[2]
  • 1441 – noun, bad luck, adverse fortune.[2][8]
  • c. 1485 – an instance of bad luck.[2]
  • 1573 – misfortune personified.[2]
  • 1611 – misfortunes never come singly.[2]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as calamity or ill luck.[9]
  • 1756 – have a misfortune, to have a child outside marriage.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Bad luck; adverse fortune: They bore their misfortune without complaint.[11][5][2]
  2. An unlucky or disastrous event; a mishap or calamity: He had the misfortune to lose his keys on the first day.[11][5][2]
  3. (dialect) The birth of a child outside marriage, or the child itself.[5][4][10]

Usage notes

The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, ranked the words for bad luck: mischance is the mildest, a mishap may be trivial, misfortune is the most general word and denotes something really serious that can befall a person, a family or a nation, and a calamity is a grave misfortune affecting many people.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Misfortune.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/misfortune. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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