Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Inappropriate; ill-chosen.
  • adjective Causing unhappiness; unfortunate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not felicitous, happy, or fortunate; unhappy: as, an infelicitous marriage.
  • Unskilful; inapt; inappropriate; ill-timed: as, an infelicitous expression.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Not felicitous; unhappy; unfortunate; not fortunate or appropriate in application; not well said, expressed, or done

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Unhappy or unfortunate.
  • adjective Inappropriate or awkward; not well said, expressed, or done.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective marked by or producing unhappiness
  • adjective not appropriate in application; defective

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From in- +‎ felicitous.

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Examples

  • We were surprised today to learn that Mayor Bloomberg dismissed his hand-picked Schools Chancellor, Cathie Black, after 97 infelicitous days as chief of New York City's school system.

    Henry J. Stern: Black Thursday Henry J. Stern 2011

  • Hoping to make up for his infelicitous soup comment, Stan chimes in with his own compliments.

    The Search Susan Kleinman 2011

  • Not only does this scene and violence occur at the dinner table, but the line of aggression that begins this infelicitous breach of dinner conduct is "I'll eat you alive, girl!"

    Bess Rowen: Putting the Eat in Theatre Bess Rowen 2011

  • We were surprised today to learn that Mayor Bloomberg dismissed his hand-picked Schools Chancellor, Cathie Black, after 97 infelicitous days as chief of New York City's school system.

    Henry J. Stern: Black Thursday Henry J. Stern 2011

  • We were surprised today to learn that Mayor Bloomberg dismissed his hand-picked Schools Chancellor, Cathie Black, after 97 infelicitous days as chief of New York City's school system.

    Henry J. Stern: Black Thursday Henry J. Stern 2011

  • Not only does this scene and violence occur at the dinner table, but the line of aggression that begins this infelicitous breach of dinner conduct is "I'll eat you alive, girl!"

    Bess Rowen: Putting the Eat in Theatre Bess Rowen 2011

  • It's a sad statement about where public discourse is that, in response to this particularly infelicitous choice of phrase, the defense that is used is, "She has no real idea what any of the words mean."

    Is Miss America to blame for Sarah Palin's 'blood libel' video? Alexandra Petri 2011

  • But when the point of an interview is to convey information and ideas clearly, the motive to catch a subject saying something infelicitous appears bizarre.

    Sam Harris: The Perils of the Print Interview Sam Harris 2011

  • Not only does this scene and violence occur at the dinner table, but the line of aggression that begins this infelicitous breach of dinner conduct is "I'll eat you alive, girl!"

    Bess Rowen: Putting the Eat in Theatre Bess Rowen 2011

  • We were surprised today to learn that Mayor Bloomberg dismissed his hand-picked Schools Chancellor, Cathie Black, after 97 infelicitous days as chief of New York City's school system.

    Henry J. Stern: Black Thursday Henry J. Stern 2011

Comments

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  • adj.

    1. inappropriate, unfortunate; e.g. infelicitous word or infelicitous phrase.

    2. marked by or producing unhappiness. e.g. infelicitous circumstances.

    December 30, 2008