feckless

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English

Etymology

From Scots feckless, variant of Scots fectless (ineffectual) (an aphetic variant of effectless), equivalent to effect +‎ -less.

Pronunciation

Adjective

feckless (comparative more feckless, superlative most feckless)

  1. Lacking purpose.
    • 2005 September 10, Canberra Times:
      It is the beauty of great games when they are played at their highest level and the extraordinary thing now is that we do not have to trawl back through all the years of your inexorable progress from feckless beach boy to master sportsman.
  2. Without skill, ineffective, incompetent.
    • 2014 March 24, Adam Reed, “On the Carpet” (4:14 from the start), in Archer, season 5, episode 9, spoken by Malory Archer (Jessica Walter):
      “Lana, when I want you to talk, I will tell you. And until then, zip it.” “Wha-- what did I do?” “Nothing.” “Yeah, Lana.” “Which is why these feckless idiots lost 200 kilos of cocaine.” “Yeah, Lan-- oh. OK. Technically. But then we stole a plane loaded with, like, twice as much cocaine.” “Is this the part where you tell me to look under my seat?”
    • 2025 March 20, Cameron Joseph, “Panicked Democratic voters are turning on their own leaders”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
      Across the country, Democratic voters who have been reeling from Mr. Trump’s sweeping and possibly illegal cuts to government, his head-spinning policy moves, and his politicization of federal law enforcement are growing more and more incensed at their own party’s seemingly feckless response.
  3. Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way.
  4. (British, archaic) Lacking vitality.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Feck on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  2. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “feckless”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Scots

Alternative forms

Etymology

feck (value) +‎ -less

Adjective

feckless (not comparable)

  1. ineffective

References