Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Hard luck for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's entry is "hard-luck" — an adjective and noun phrase, pronounced /ˈhɑːd lʌk/, with the stress on "hard".
Narrator: Hard-luck describes persistent misfortune, especially in the phrase "hard-luck story" — a tale of repeated bad fortune.
Narrator: In plain English, hard-luck names a pattern of misfortune, often told to explain a setback or request sympathy.
Narrator: It builds simply from "hard" plus "luck", describing luck that's been consistently unkind rather than merely absent.
Narrator: "Hard-luck story" gained popularity through twentieth-century journalism and everyday sympathetic complaint.
Narrator: It carries a subtle skepticism sometimes — a hard-luck story can be genuine, or a convenient excuse.
Narrator: Sports commentary uses "hard-luck loser" for a competitor who deserved better despite the final result.
Narrator: It differs from simple "bad luck" by repetition — hard-luck implies a whole pattern, not one unlucky moment.
Narrator: So remember: hard-luck is misfortune with a narrative — the story told about luck that just won't turn.
Speaker A: People say "don't give me your hard-luck story" almost sarcastically. Is "hard-luck" always a bit doubtful, or can it be genuine?
Speaker B: It can genuinely go either way! HARD-LUCK, simply "hard" plus "luck", describes a pattern of persistent misfortune. A hard-luck story CAN be completely genuine and sympathetic — but the phrase also carries a subtle skepticism, since it's often used to describe excuses too.
Speaker A: So context and tone decide whether it's sincere or sceptical?
Speaker B: Exactly — "she told a heartbreaking hard-luck story" sounds genuine; "spare me the hard-luck story" sounds dismissive. Same phrase, completely different intent!
Speaker A: Example sentences?
Speaker B: "He's had a real hard-luck few years"; "the charity heard countless hard-luck stories"; "she's the hard-luck loser of the tournament" — sympathy, charity work, and sport.
Speaker A: Common mistakes?
Speaker B: Hyphenated before a noun — "hard-luck story" — always keep both words connected. And it's specifically about REPEATED misfortune, not a single unlucky event!
Speaker A: Close relatives?
Speaker B: "Sob story" the more skeptical cousin, "misfortune" the formal twin, "tough break" the casual American alternative, "run of bad luck" the plain descriptive phrase. Hard-luck keeps its narrative weight!
Speaker B: Let's use "hard-luck" in AI prompts — a memorable way to flag repeated failure patterns worth investigating.
Speaker A: So hard-luck in a prompt could describe a recurring failure pattern in data?
Speaker B: Right. For analytics, you'd write:
Prompt: Find hard-luck customers who've had three or more failed payment attempts this month, and offer them a simpler retry option.
Speaker A: Good — what about QA testing?
Speaker B: The reliability prompt:
Prompt: Flag any test that keeps failing intermittently — a real hard-luck test — and investigate whether it's flaky rather than genuinely broken.
Speaker A: Sales pipeline analysis?
Speaker B: The CRM prompt:
Prompt: Identify hard-luck deals that have stalled at the same pipeline stage for over sixty days, and flag them for manager review.
Speaker A: One more?
Speaker B: The support prompt:
Prompt: Spot hard-luck users who've contacted support five times in a month without resolution, and escalate them to a dedicated specialist.
Speaker A: Hard-luck always signals a repeated pattern worth real investigation, not one bad day.
Speaker B: Exactly — say hard-luck, and the AI looks for the recurring root cause.
Hard luck — meaning in Arabic & definition More H courses GL Dictionary