Simon Schama
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Someone feckless is lacking in feck. And what, you may ask, is feck? In Scots—our source of feckless—feck means "majority" or "effect." The term is ultimately an alteration of the Middle English effect. So something without feck is without effect, or ineffective. In the past, feckful (meaning "efficient, effective," "sturdy," or "powerful") made an occasional appearance. But in this case, the weak has outlived the strong: feckless is a commonly used English word, but feckful has fallen out of use.
Synonyms
Examples of feckless in a Sentence
Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2024
Yet Khan remains remarkably popular — a former cricket national team captain beloved by the masses who is seen as standing against a class of entrenched, feckless elites.
—Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 7 Feb. 2024
Republicans portrayed his entire approach as feckless and naïve.
—Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 17 Feb. 2024
The Jackie Robinson statue theft: Criminals as a group, as an occupation, are dumb, feckless and lacking in whatever constitutes conscience and soul.
—Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 28 Jan. 2024
If the designs of this conference’s attendees are in some way nefarious, at least its participants are feckless in their pursuit.
—Noah Rothman, National Review, 18 Jan. 2024
An inept, feckless and unpopular Palestinian Authority, a voiceless Palestinian people, armed settlers and an Israeli military with an ambiguous mission coexist in the treacherous vacuum of putative but ever-more-inconceivable Palestinian statehood.
—Roger Cohen, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2024
Nor should his feckless endorsement of Donald Trump.
—Mary Ellen Klas, The Mercury News, 23 Jan. 2024
But his Iran policy has been feckless, fatally flawed and dangerous to Americans, Israelis and brave Iranians fighting against Iran’s repressive rulers.
—WSJ, 21 Dec. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'feckless.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near feckless
Cite this Entry
“Feckless.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feckless. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.
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