Synonyms:
hapless, miserable, misfortunate, pathetic, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, poor, wretched
Meaning: deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; "miserable victims of war"; "the shabby room struck her as extraordinarily pathetic"- Galsworthy; "piteous appeals for help"; "pitiable homeless children"; "a pitiful fate"; "Oh, you poor thing"; "his poor distorted limbs"; "a wretched life"
Usage examples
Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless?
O hapless women, and insatiate in jealousy to their own ruin!
On leaving this interesting but hapless girl, I proceeded to the house of Steffani.
Hapless ones, assuredly a bitter vengeance came upon them thereafter at the hands of Heracles, because they stayed the search for him.
As she came to the last words, Miss Sharp's "deep-toned voice faltered." Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and to her hapless orphan state.
It is unnecessary to say with what delight Sandford was received by Miss Woodley, and the hapless daughter of Lady Elmwood, even before he told his errand.
The dark-robed priest pressed the hapless Jew to his heart with so fervent an outburst of love, that the edges of the monochal haircloth rubbed the Dominican's breast.
Then Medeia clapped her hands together, and cried, "Sing louder, Orpheus, sing a bolder strain; wake up these hapless sluggards, or none of them will see the land of Hellas more."
Hapless young creatures in her plight must always be touching, but her touchingness was indescribable--almost unendurable to the ripe aged woman of the world who watched and heard her.
One, while listening to his companion, gazed at the rabbi! And, beneath the look--whose absence of expression the hapless man did not at first notice--he fancied he again felt the burning pincers scorch his flesh, he was to be once more a living wound.