misfortune
bad luck or an unlucky event
Roots
- fort / fors: chance, luck, or fortune
- mis-: wrong, bad, or mistaken
Other words with the fort / fors root
- fortuitous: happening by chance
- fortunate: lucky or favored by chance
- fortune: luck or chance; sometimes wealth
Misfortune is fortune landing badly: luck arrives, but on the wrong side.
The missed train was a misfortune, but not a disaster; she still reached the interview.
Misfortune keeps the luck image. The word is calmer than catastrophe: something goes wrong, but the scale can range from annoying to life-changing.