unfortunately
adverb
un·for·tu·nate·ly
| \ ˌən-ˈfȯrch-nət-lē
, -ˈfȯr-chə-\
, -ˈfȯr-chə-\
Definition of unfortunately
1
: it is unfortunate
Unfortunately, in the intervening years, time has not stood still for the global environment.— Al Gore A young man can work at excessive speed with no ill effects, but youth is unfortunately not a permanent condition of life.— F. Scott Fitzgerald The past couple years have ended unfortunately for us, and we're using it as motivation.— James Moyers
2
: in a regrettable, unlucky, or unsuitable manner : in an unfortunate manner
"Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons pleasant people?" "No, not all," answered Marianne; "we could not be more unfortunately situated."— Jane Austen
Examples of unfortunately in a Sentence
Our awards program evaluates wine lists, not restaurants as a whole. While we assume the level of food and service will be commensurate with the quality of the wine lists submitted by award winners, this unfortunately is not always true.
— Wine Spectator, 31 Aug. 2008
Coral reefs provide essential goods and services to maritime tropical nations and are the most diverse marine ecosystems on the planet. Unfortunately, reefs are seriously declining because of global warming.
— Andrea G. Grottoli et al., Nature, 27 Apr. 2006
There are many books announcing a global economic transformation and suggesting that governments can be reengineered to adapt to it in much the same way as corporations. … Unfortunately the problems of globalization are more intractable than those of corporate life. States cannot be phased out like bankrupt firms, and large shifts in wealth and power tend to be fiercely contested.
— John Gray, New York Review of Books, 11 Aug. 2005
Doctors have long believed that children experience pain differently than adults. Unfortunately, most doctors thought kids felt pain less than grownups do, and didn't retain memory of it. As late as the 1970s, infants underwent major surgery without anesthetics. … This barbaric notion was finally put to rest in the 1980s …
— Michael D. Lemonick, Time, 28 Feb. 2005
In the aftermath of the Revolution, Americans desperately needed some non-British heroes. Columbus filled the bill even though no one knew much about him until novelist Washington Irving visited Spain, found a rich lode of source materials and produced a widely read biography. Unfortunately, Irving mixed fiction with fact, and one of his most graphic scenes, set in Salamanca, was wildly imaginative.
— Owen Gingerich, Scientific American, November 1992
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Recent Examples on the Web
There's unfortunately not currently a way to turn it off altogether. — David Nield, Wired, "The Windows 10 Privacy Settings You Should Check Right Now," 7 Sep. 2019 There unfortunately isn't a cure for lupus, but there are treatments that can help manage the disease. — Samantha Lauriello, Health.com, "Kim Kardashian Thinks She Has Lupus in New 'KUWTK' Trailer—but What Does That Mean?," 6 Sep. 2019 The deep-fried spring rolls were unfortunately oily. — Daily Pilot, "Review: At Tim Ho Wan Irvine, commuter dim sum from the Hong Kong Michelin-starred specialist," 6 Sep. 2019 But unfortunately, politics and political movements are cyclical, and these themes of oppression are recurring. — Emma Dibdin, Harper's BAZAAR, "Amanda Brugel Has a Game-Changing Theory About The Handmaid's Tale's Rita," 17 Aug. 2019 But sporting events are one of the few remaining cases where there's still a good argument for watching live, and unfortunately in the US that's sometimes a little easier said than done. — Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, "Formula E five years on: Cars Technica grades the electric racing series," 23 July 2019 The Parisians' injury troubles stretch further back than just up front, unfortunately. — SI.com, "6 Stoke-Connected Players PSG Could Sign to Solve Their Striking Crisis," 26 Aug. 2019 This, unfortunately, showed, with choppy transitions, major sound mixing issues, and a lack of synchronicity in this work’s many unison sections. — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, "Rennie Harris brings ‘Lifted’ to the MCA, with joyous music and dance and a story that can’t keep up," 25 Aug. 2019 The ticket price unfortunately does not include cab fare from Newark Airport into Manhattan, which will cost you more than the flight itself. — Jiji Lee, The New Yorker, "New Budget Airlines," 23 Aug. 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'unfortunately.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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