luck

/lək/

/lək/

Other forms: lucks

Luck is chance or happenstance. If something happens from pure good luck, it seemingly came out of nowhere, based only on fate and not on anything you did to make it happen.

If you find a fifty dollar bill on the sidewalk, you might exclaim, "What luck!" Alternately, if you lose all night at the poker table, you'll probably blame it on bad luck. In both examples, you're referring to a mysterious, unpredictable circumstance that affects your life by chance. Luck has a Middle Dutch root, luc, which is a shortened form of gheluc, "happiness or good fortune."

Definitions of luck

1. noun

   an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
   “bad luck caused his downfall”

   synonyms: chance, fortune, hazard

   types:

   bad luck, mischance, mishap

   an unpredictable outcome that is unfortunate

   even chance, toss-up, tossup

   an unpredictable phenomenon

   type of:

   phenomenon

   any state or process known through the senses rather than by intuition or reasoning
2. noun

   an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that leads to a favorable outcome
   “it was my good luck to be there”

   “they say luck is a lady”

   synonyms: fortune

   types:

   fluke, good fortune, good luck

   a stroke of luck

   serendipity

   good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries

   type of:

   phenomenon

   any state or process known through the senses rather than by intuition or reasoning
3. noun

   your overall circumstances or condition in life (including everything that happens to you)
   “the luck of the Irish”

   synonyms: circumstances, destiny, fate, fortune, lot, portion

   types:

   good fortune, good luck, luckiness

   an auspicious state resulting from favorable outcomes

   providence

   a manifestation of God's foresightful care for his creatures

   bad luck, ill luck, misfortune, tough luck

   an unfortunate state resulting from unfavorable outcomes

   failure

   lack of success

   prosperity, successfulness

   the condition of prospering; having good fortune

   blessing, boon

   a desirable state

   weakness

   the condition of being financially weak

   adversity, hard knocks, hardship

   a state of misfortune or affliction

   gutter, sewer, toilet

   a state of misfortune resulting in lost effort or money

   hard cheese

   bad luck

   bankruptcy

   a state of complete lack of some abstract property

   bank failure

   the inability of a bank to meet its credit obligations

   crop failure

   the failure of crops to produce a marketable surplus

   dead duck

   something doomed to failure

   type of:

   condition

   a mode of being or form of existence of a person or thing