adjective

• Destined to fail or have many difficulties; unlucky.

  ‘an ill-starred expedition’

  More example sentences

  • ‘During his ultimately ill-starred tenure in Manchester, Brandon's only achievement of note was taking Britain's best-supported side to the play-off semi-finals.’
  • ‘Well, you have to remember that a lot of the important independent investigations that have been carried out were carried out by people not appointed under that ill-starred statute.’
  • ‘In film, theatre and music, lovers are ill-starred because parents object, someone is married to someone else, etc. - in short, because they are prevented from being together.’
  • ‘After King Charles VIII's ill-starred invasion of Italy, survivors of his guard settled in a remote village in the north of the peninsula where, to this day, the inhabitants wear tartan.’
  • ‘This regiment, again the ill-starred 14th, stood no chance.’
  • ‘More to the point, the remnants of his ill-starred crew had struggled across a permanently frozen strait and died in a region, I knew from my research, where no navigable passage existed.’
  • ‘It takes its name from a song written by George to analyse ‘the ego problem’ during the Fab Four's ill-starred Let It Be film-and-album project.’
  • ‘The one blot on an otherwise pristine record is his ill-starred sojourn at Leicester, where he spent the thick end of £25m and left them with a team destined for relegation.’
  • ‘From memory, the ill-starred City Life also began with someone being dispatched by a road accident, in which core characters connected to him were involved.’
  • ‘That was what the USA forgot when it began its ill-starred adventure in Vietnam: it is one thing to have strategic ambitions but quite another to pay for them in cash and young lives.’
  • ‘This was to be the year when the horrors of the past were left behind, when the shadows of 1846 lifted and the ill-starred peasants celebrated in the bright dawn of a new year.’
  • ‘On the other hand he seems happy to pay for the repatriation of the bodies of a similar number of Spaniards who died fighting for Hitler during his ill-starred attack on the Soviet Union.’
  • ‘Ever since Atlanta's ill-starred Olympics of 1996, it has been accepted that good transport is the key to every major sporting event.’
  • ‘Most of his cabinet colleagues spoke to him before he left to offer sympathy, including many whom he criticised in remarks made public in the ill-starred biography.’
  • ‘Almost 5000 Allied troops died that day, and Capa, the ill-starred gambler, was fortunate not to be among the dead.’
  • ‘This was also an ill-starred night for Chelsea.’
  • ‘Othello's jealous rages grieved not only her, his ill-starred wife, but also all those under his command.’
  • ‘The ill-starred USS Pueblo itself has never been stricken from the Navy's roster of active ships.’
  • ‘Snow can also be heard giving directions to his ill-starred actors.’
  • ‘It is all there because of the Minister's ill-starred network review, which he had great enthusiasm for.’

  Synonyms

  ill-fated, doomed, blighted, ill-omened, foredoomed, infelicitous

  View synonyms