Luck
nounSuccess or failure brought about by chance rather than by one's own effort.
How to spell luck
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce luck
What does luck mean?
- nounSuccess or failure brought about by chance rather than by one's own effort.
Luck in a sentence
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Finding a parking space right outside the office was pure luck.
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She wished her colleague good luck before the interview.
Where does luck come from?
Language of origin: Dutch
Luck arrived in English in the fifteenth century, borrowed from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch luk, which was itself a shortened form of gelucke meaning 'good fortune' or 'happiness'. The same Germanic root survives in modern German as Glück, still meaning both 'luck' and 'happiness', and in Dutch as geluk. The word seems to have entered English first through gambling and dice play, where talk of fortune was constant, which explains why it spread so quickly into everyday speech. Its original sense leaned toward favourable outcomes specifically, though English soon used it for fortune of any kind, good or bad. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the final -ck simply following the normal English habit of doubling the k sound after a short vowel, as in 'duck' and 'rock'.
How the word is built
- luck (single root, no affixes; a shortened borrowing of Middle Dutch gelucke)
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