feckless
pronunciation
How to pronounce feckless in British English:
UK [ˈfekləs]
How to pronounce feckless in American English:
US [ˈfɛklɪs]
-
- Adjective:
- not fit to assume responsibility
- generally incompetent and ineffectual
Word Origin
- feckless
- feckless: [16] From an etymological point of view, feckless is simply another way of saying ineffective. It originated in Scotland, where from the 15th century the local population economized on the pronunciation of effect, reducing it to feck (this survived into modern times in the sense ‘efficacy’). From it was formed feckless, literally ‘having no effect’, and also feckful ‘efficient, vigorous’, which never made it further south than northern England.=> effect
- feckless (adj.)
- 1590s, from feck, "effect, value, vigor" (late 15c.), Scottish shortened form of effect (n.), + -less. Popularized by Carlyle, who left its opposite, feckful, in dialectal obscurity. Related: Fecklessly; fecklessness.
Example
- 1. I have seen up close how feckless management activity can change things .
- 2. Helping the jobless may be more palatable than bailing out feckless states .
- 3. There is already much bitter talk in greece about the loss of national sovereignty ; matched only by bitter talk in germany about the costs of bailing out feckless southern europeans .
- 4. He would not be the first italian technocrat to see his work undone by feckless politicians .
- 5. Care must be taken so mothers rather than feckless fathers control funds for their children .