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. UK Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way.
- adj. UK, archaic Lacking vitality.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Scot Spiritless; weak; worthless.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. generally incompetent and ineffectual
- adj. not fit to assume responsibility
Etymologies
- From Scots, feck ("effect"), aphetic form of effect, + -less. (Wiktionary)
- Scots feck, effect (alteration of effect) + -less. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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phrontistery - f
from phrontistery.info
fustilarian, fusillation, fustian, futurology, fusiform, futurition, fusee, fuscous, fusain, furunculoid, futtock, furibund and 418 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 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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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 297 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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-more or -less
Words ending with *more or *less, more or less. Many of theses terms also appear on the list The -less Said, which see.
schemaless, jobless, endless, useless, unless, guileless, wireless, regardless, homeless, nevertheless, countless, doubtless and 434 more...
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Cool Words
Words I'd like to see enter common usage.
fricatrice, inchoate, imparlance, apothegm, ductile, parley, frisson, quiescent, redolent, insouciance, feckless, caviling and 25 more...
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GRE Practice
coruscate, preternatural, preclude, retrench, perfidy, sophistry, sedulous, martinet, churlish, dissembler, prevarication, impugn and 38 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1856 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for feckless.
pramishna sounds like freckles.. people who don't work hard to get rid of em. Oct 29, 2012
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