Definitions

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

  • noun Failure to achieve a desired end.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Lack of success; failure.

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

  • noun Want of success; failure; misfortune.

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

  • noun A lack of success

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ success

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Examples

  • Whether one can fairly use the word "unsuccess" in reference to verse which succeeds so exquisitely as Mr. de la Mare's in being literature is a nice question.

    The Art of Letters Robert Lynd 1914

  • Larkin was beginning as he put it himself, retrospectively "to find out what life was about": not failure exactly but "unsuccess".

    Top stories from Times Online 2010

  • Why would I want to take the game for another hunter and rob them of their success, or unsuccess for that matter?

    Your Thoughts on "Cross-Tagging" 2009

  • Why would I want to take the game for another hunter and rob them of their success, or unsuccess for that matter?

    Your Thoughts on "Cross-Tagging" 2009

  • Unlike Dr. King and Malcolm X who encouraged Black people to patronize their neighborhood stores, and ‘shop Black,’ Obama is convinced that gentrification is not a major factor in the unsuccess of community-stores, but rather, littering – which, following his logic, is a genetic deficiency of Blackness.

    Obama is NOT King (And Martin Ain't Barack) 2009

  • They -- if they -- if they are unsuccess -- if the campaign that they're associated with is unsuccessful, what they want to do is move to the campaign that is successful.

    CNN Transcript May 17, 2009 2009

  • They -- if they -- if they are unsuccess -- if the campaign that they're associated with is unsuccessful, what they want to do is move to the campaign that is successful.

    CNN Transcript May 12, 2009 2009

  • In 1980, Jean Strouse published an award-winning study of the short, pathetic, life of Alice James … Alice died of cancer in 1892, at the age of 43, and the enormous fame and accomplishment of her two eldest brothers — Henry (the novelist) and William (the psychologist/philosopher) — eventually brought attention to her terrible life of illness and, as W.H. Auden so unforgettably put it, her all-too human “unsuccess.”

    Desperately Seeking Alice 2006

  • In 1980, Jean Strouse published an award-winning study of the short, pathetic, life of Alice James … Alice died of cancer in 1892, at the age of 43, and the enormous fame and accomplishment of her two eldest brothers — Henry (the novelist) and William (the psychologist/philosopher) — eventually brought attention to her terrible life of illness and, as W.H. Auden so unforgettably put it, her all-too human “unsuccess.”

    Vitro Nasu » 2006 » July 2006

  • His young features were stamped with a melancholy grace, his looks told of unsuccess and many blighted hopes.

    The Magic Skin 2007

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