Destined to fail or have many difficulties; unlucky.
‘an ill-starred expedition’
‘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.’