Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.
- adj. Careless and irresponsible.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Spiritless; weak; useless; worthless.
Wiktionary
- adj. Lacking purpose.
- adj. Without skill, ineffective, incompetent.
- adj. Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way.
- adj. Lacking vitality.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Spiritless; weak; worthless.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. generally incompetent and ineffectual
- adj. not fit to assume responsibility
Etymologies
- Scots feck, effect (alteration of effect) + -less.
Examples
“As for when to call it feckless, I don't look past the first box of ammo.”
“He uses the word feckless in the snippet being played!”
“Honest Mop’s report crimes but we are hamstrung by the less well intended who make false reports to upgrade their mobile phones, cant sort out their lives/family problems themselves and overindulge in feckless drink and drug binges, seek crime numbers for ’stolen’ DSS payments or ‘criminally damaged’ windows that they broke themsleves.”
“KELEMEN: What McCain called a feckless agreement, the Turks see as a starting point for a diplomatic way out of the dispute over Iran's suspect nuclear program.”
“The youth of all lands are idle and feckless, which is why twelve-of-the-best, administered with a cane, whip or Prozac is a part of all cultures, from eastest-East to westest-West.”
“AMERICAN POLICY INthe Balkans through the first half of the 1990s can only be described as feckless.”
“Ellen Tauscher, a former Democratic congresswoman from the San Francisco Bay Area (in other words, a feckless "liberal" who spent her career paying lip-service to the antiwar sentiments of her constituents -- and then voting in favor of every blood-soaked imperialist adventure undertaken by the Bush regime) rejected international monitoring of military and pharmaceutical sites that might employ research for illicit purposes, e.g., the fabrication of banned biological weapons.”
“Because he's "feckless" by comparison to the "more formidable" Chuck Schumer, who would likely have been Reid's successor.”
“I don't own any "feckless" rifles, interesting term, but i am very willing to give Dave $150. oo for the previously mentioned hunk of junk that shoots better than 2 MOA.”
“Mr. Bernanke's former Princeton University colleague, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, has become the loudest critic of Mr. Bernanke's inaction, calling the Fed "feckless" (lacking in vitality, unthinking, irresponsible) in his New York Times column.”
The Wall Street Journal: The View From Bernanke's Perch at the Fed
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘feckless’.
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Very Silly Words
A list of very silly sounding words, as well as words that are fun to say
badot, gardyloo, dingbat, gaffer, kine, haberdashery, forsooth, whey-faced, hoddypeak, brouhaha, widdershins, decemnovenarianize and 115 more...
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 136 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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In the News
Words from politics, news, and business
sedition, juridical, feckless, austerity, debenture, sovereign, subterfuge, amicus, obfuscate, transparency, usurp, paradox and 26 more...
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bestiary
agave, incunable, echt, wissenschaft, friscalating, obsolescence, clavier, yajna, ecstatic, casual, protean, hum and 41 more...

jorge999
I never dreamed I'd be a wreck
who one day wouldn't give a feck,
in my youth I was bold and reckless
now, alas, I'm old and feckless Nov 6, 2009
willie 'feck' is the Scottish approximation to the English 'effect,' thus, feckless is without effect. Jun 4, 2009
unsightlygimp feck must mean some manner of responsibility? i'm going to list this in my notes as synonymous to fetus-less Apr 20, 2009
BrainyBabe One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Pointless. Dec 22, 2008
onomatopoeiaist According to the online dictionary,
Feck: the bulk; the greater part; a quantity Jul 10, 2008
darqueau "Sterility. Sterility on all sides. As far as the eye can see the infertile desert lies in the pitiless glare of the merciless sun, a lifeless, trackless, feckless, fuckless waste strown with the bodies of luckless wayfarers."
Ursula K Le Guin -the Dispossessed Jul 7, 2008
sionnach I think a feck might be related to a gorm.
Feckless is one of the four horses on Cold Comfort Farm. The other three are called Graceless, Aimless and Pointless. Jul 7, 2008
maesepedro I don't know what feck is, or if it's anything. This is exactly the reason I like feckless. Jul 7, 2008
sonofgroucho Does anybody know what a feck is? Jan 28, 2007