When I look up hapless in the dictionary,¹ the definition is basically "unfortunate" (hap from Old Norse for good luck, -less from Old English leas meaning "without").
That's fine as a very basic definition, but as a native speaker, to me hapless carries a connotation of being a bit helpless about one's lack of luck, a bit ineffective. So not just unlucky, but also failing to be proactive doing anything about it.
Is it just me? Or is this connotation well-established in literature, etc.?
Vocabulary.com makes the following usage example in which hapless actually has a wider connotation than unlucky:
Use the adjective hapless to describe someone unlucky and deserving of pity, like the hapless car buyer who gives in to the fast-talking salesperson.
- A traveler who goes to Moscow and briefly gets lost on the subway? Just a tourist. A traveler who goes to Moscow, accidentally eats food he is allergic to, somehow loses all his money, and by chance gets on a train destined for Mongolia? Definitely hapless
From: Matthew Bernstein; The Fix Is In; Wild West (Leesburg, Virginia); Jun 2020.
“Sticking his gun into the patrolman’s abdomen, Chuck once more pulled the trigger, and again the gun didn’t fire. By then O’Sullivan had joined the fray, and the officers arrested the hapless gunman.” Matthew Bernstein; The Fix Is In; Wild West (Leesburg, Virginia); Jun 2020.
