Hapless means unlucky or unfortunate, often in a way that makes you feel a bit sorry for someone. A hapless character in a story keeps running into bad luck through no real fault of their own: the hapless detective who always arrives just after the criminal has escaped, or the hapless knight whose armor falls apart at the worst possible moment.

The word suggests repeated misfortune that seems to follow someone around. Someone described as hapless attracts bad luck again and again. Think of the hapless substitute teacher who walks into a classroom on the day the fire alarm is broken, the projector doesn't work, and someone has hidden all the dry-erase markers.

You might see hapless used in stories about hapless thieves who accidentally lock themselves in a store, or hapless tourists who follow their GPS the wrong way. The word often carries a slightly humorous tone, used when the misfortune is more bumbling than tragic. While you'd feel genuine sympathy for someone facing real hardship, hapless is the word for when someone's string of bad luck seems almost comically improbable.