unfortunates
Meaning
people who are unlucky or in a bad situation
Structure
Usage
charities often aim to provide aid to society's unfortunates.
the novel paints a vivid picture of the lives of the urban unfortunates.
in times of crisis, the gap between the privileged and the unfortunates becomes starkly apparent.
Etymology
The word is built upon the Latin noun fortuna, which personified the goddess of chance and later generalized to mean luck or fate. The prefix "un-" negates this, creating the adjective "unfortunate" to describe someone lacking good fortune. The addition of the plural suffix "-s" then transforms this descriptive term into a collective noun, "unfortunates," used to refer to a group of people characterized by their shared state of bad luck or hardship. This evolution from a concept of divine chance to a label for an afflicted group demonstrates how language categorizes human experience.
Analysis
un: a prefix of germanic origin (old english) meaning "not". fortune: from latin fortuna (chance, luck, fate), the root of the modern english word. ate: a suffix of latin origin (-atus) used to form adjectives meaning "having the quality of". s: a suffix of germanic origin (old english) used to form regular plurals of nouns.