Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Careless and irresponsible.
  • adjective Feeble or ineffective.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Spiritless; weak; useless; worthless.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Scot Spiritless; weak; worthless.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Lacking purpose.
  • adjective Without skill, ineffective, incompetent.
  • adjective UK Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way.
  • adjective UK, archaic Lacking vitality.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective generally incompetent and ineffectual
  • adjective not fit to assume responsibility

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Scots feck, effect (alteration of effect) + –less.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Scots, feck ("effect"), aphetic form of effect, +‎ -less.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word feckless.

Examples

  • As for when to call it feckless, I don't look past the first box of ammo.

    A Brief Guide to Feckless* Rifles 2009

  • As for when to call it feckless, I don't look past the first box of ammo.

    A Brief Guide to Feckless* Rifles 2009

  • He uses the word feckless in the snippet being played!

    Archive 2005-10-01 2005

  • Honest Mop’s report crimes but we are hamstrung by the less well intended who make false reports to upgrade their mobile phones, cant sort out their lives/family problems themselves and overindulge in feckless drink and drug binges, seek crime numbers for ’stolen’ DSS payments or ‘criminally damaged’ windows that they broke themsleves.

    Police Pay Award (Lose the smiles) « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007

  • KELEMEN: What McCain called a feckless agreement, the Turks see as a starting point for a diplomatic way out of the dispute over Iran's suspect nuclear program.

    Turkey Offers U.S. A Diplomatic Channel To Iran 2010

  • The youth of all lands are idle and feckless, which is why twelve-of-the-best, administered with a cane, whip or Prozac is a part of all cultures, from eastest-East to westest-West.

    Archive 2005-06-01 ps 2005

  • AMERICAN POLICY INthe Balkans through the first half of the 1990s can only be described as feckless.

    Sands of Empire Robert W. Merry 2005

  • AMERICAN POLICY INthe Balkans through the first half of the 1990s can only be described as feckless.

    Sands of Empire Robert W. Merry 2005

  • AMERICAN POLICY INthe Balkans through the first half of the 1990s can only be described as feckless.

    Sands of Empire Robert W. Merry 2005

  • The youth of all lands are idle and feckless, which is why twelve-of-the-best, administered with a cane, whip or Prozac is a part of all cultures, from eastest-East to westest-West.

    The End of Empire ps 2005

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Does anybody know what a feck is?

    January 28, 2007

  • I don't know what feck is, or if it's anything. This is exactly the reason I like feckless.

    July 7, 2008

  • I think a feck might be related to a gorm.

    Feckless is one of the four horses on Cold Comfort Farm. The other three are called Graceless, Aimless and Pointless.

    July 7, 2008

  • "Sterility. Sterility on all sides. As far as the eye can see the infertile desert lies in the pitiless glare of the merciless sun, a lifeless, trackless, feckless, fuckless waste strown with the bodies of luckless wayfarers."

    Ursula K Le Guin -the Dispossessed

    July 7, 2008

  • According to the online dictionary,

    Feck: the bulk; the greater part; a quantity

    July 10, 2008

  • One of the cows kept at ''Cold Comfort Farm'', the classic satire by Stella Gibbons. Big Business, the bull, services her and her companions Graceless, Aimless, and Pointless.

    December 23, 2008

  • feck must mean some manner of responsibility? i'm going to list this in my notes as synonymous to fetus-less

    April 20, 2009

  • 'feck' is the Scottish approximation to the English 'effect,' thus, feckless is without effect.

    June 5, 2009

  • I never dreamed I'd be a wreck

    who one day wouldn't give a feck,

    in my youth I was bold and reckless

    now, alas, I'm old and feckless

    November 6, 2009

  • sounds like freckles.. people who don't work hard to get rid of em.

    October 30, 2012

  • spotted "feckless hooligans!"

    September 5, 2015