feckless

adjective

feck·​less ˈfek-ləs 

1

: weak, ineffective

She can't rely on her feckless son.

2

: worthless, irresponsible

a feckless maneuver that could only serve to strengthen the enemy

—Simon Schama

fecklessly adverb

fecklessness noun

Did you know?

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

• counterproductive
• hamstrung
• ineffective
• ineffectual
• inefficacious
• inefficient
• inexpedient

Examples of feckless in a Sentence

She can't rely on her feckless son.

a well-intentioned but feckless response to the rise in school violence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Corleones of Kabul Foreign observers of Afghanistan tend to think of former President Hamid Karzai’s government as a clan of corrupt thugs, led by a feckless, petulant whiner. —Jonah Blank, Foreign Affairs, 10 June 2024

As entertainment, Real Time has a limited audience of HBO subscribers, yet its clips serve as a crutch for conservative TV programs — those outlets too feckless to generate their own talking points but that are always following the lead of left-wing media. —Armond White, National Review, 7 June 2024

John Hawkes brings dimension to a feckless cop on True Detective. —Joe Reid, Vulture, 25 May 2024

Demand for change at the top of the Russian military has been pent up since the invasion’s earliest days, when stories circulated about Russian soldiers going to war without proper food and equipment and losing their lives while answering to feckless military leaders. —Anatoly Kurmanaev, New York Times, 26 May 2024

Word History

Etymology

Scots, from feck effect, majority, from Middle English (Scots) fek, alteration of Middle English effect

First Known Use

circa 1585, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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