Friday the 13th is thought by many to be a particularly unlucky day. The number 13 is often thought to be a bad omen, although it’s unclear where this superstition comes from. To make matters even worse, Friday has been considered an especially unfortunate day of the week for hundreds of years (this was pre-TGIF, of course). Combine the two and you get paraskevidekatriaphobia, fear of Friday the 13th.
The word unlucky is older than fear of Friday the 13th. It entered into English around 1400, and it comes from the word luck, from the Middle Dutch luc, a shortened form for “happiness, good fortune.” The prefix un- means “not.” So, unlucky means “not fortunate” or “not happy.”
Should you find yourself unlucky enough to be unlucky on this Friday the 13th—or any day of the year—you can use any of these synonyms for unlucky to describe your misfortune.