Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use unsuccessful in a sentence

37 example sentences · adjective

Unsuccessful means failed, not successful. Example: “His unsuccessful attempt earned him sympathy, condolences, and an occasional good-natured ribbing.”

Examples of unsuccessful by meaning

adjectiveFailed, not successful.

  • His unsuccessful attempt earned him sympathy, condolences, and an occasional good-natured ribbing.
  • For example, an unsuccessful men's deodorant was successfully remerchandised by repackaging, heavier advertising, a higher price and new brand name 'Brut'.2004, Luiz Moutinho, Charles S. Chien, Problems in marketing

More sentences with unsuccessful

  • After a brief and unsuccessful search, he decided it was time to start pounding the pavement.From the entry pound the pavement
  • After an unsuccessful excursion into banking, I've returned to public life.From the entry excursion
  • After several unsuccessful attempts to repair the clock, he got it right on the fourth try.From the entry get right
  • Dylan owes Fletcher $30 from an unsuccessful bet.From the entry bet
  • My first pass at a career of writing proved unsuccessful.From the entry pass
  • She felt discouraged after several unsuccessful interviews.From the entry discouraged
  • His television luck ran out with two unsuccessful comedy series and no less than three busted pilots.2017, Everett Aaker, Television Western Players, 1960-1975: A Biographical Dictionary, page 1995. From the entry busted pilot
  • He is shabbily smart, and looks what he is, a slackish, hard-drinking unsuccessful man of forty-two.2001, J. B. Priestley, An Inspector Calls and Other Plays, →ISBN. From the entry slackish
  • The successful bats have been found to regurgitate blood for their unsuccessful cavemates.1992, Val W. Woodward, Human Heredity and Society, page 261. From the entry cavemate
  • When fetofetal transfusion syndrome occurs in very preterm gestation, treatment options are limited and often unsuccessful.1991, Daniel R. Mishell, 1991 Year Book of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Year Book Medical Pub, →ISBN. From the entry fetofetal
  • The nurse was unsuccessful in medicating Marty because he was given free-roam of the unit.1985, Carol A. Rogers, Jane Ulsafer-Van Lanen, Nursing interventions in depression, →ISBN, page 188. From the entry free-roam
  • All of these different methods of teaching elementary reading were successful for some pupils, unsuccessful for others.1972, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 23. From the entry pupil
  • The French, however, were unsuccessful in their attempt to exploit the Berber-Arab dichotomy.1962, David C. Gordon, “Notes”, in North Africa’s French Legacy, 1954–1962, Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed for the Center for Middle…. From the entry arabophone
  • All efforts by ship's force to effect emergency repairs were unsuccessful.1949 January 1, Bureau of Ships, “U.S.S. GRENADIER (SS210), Loss in Action, Off Malaya, 22 April 1943”, in Submarine Report: Depth Charge…. From the entry derangement
  • And so an unsuccessful bookseller writes after his shop is closed on a singularly unsatisfactory day.[1938], [William Darling], “Destroy the Books”, in The Bankrupt Bookseller Speaks Again, Edinburgh; London: Oliver and Boyd, →OCLC, page 212. From the entry what is one to do
  • If those attempts are unsuccessful, the attorney requesting the interrogatories may file a motion for sanctions with the court.2013, James J. Gross, It's Splitsville: Surviving Your Divorce, page 240. From the entry attorney
  • All children called Darren, Wayne, Jason, Tracy, Kirsty or Kylie are destined for misery and several unsuccessful attempts at suicide.2012, Theodore Dalrymple, If Symptoms Persist. From the entry Darren
  • An unsuccessful dude would dress all bummy and stuff.2010, David J. Harding, Living the Drama, page 57. From the entry bummy
  • Attempts to sidestep this statutory rule have been unsuccessful.2003, Ralph De Wit, “The Concept of Statutory Rights of Action in Carriage of Goods”, in Eric Van Hooydonk, editor, English and…. From the entry stevedore
  • The consequence of an unsuccessful war might be concession to the Slavs, perhaps the ‘trialism’ which would undo Austro-Hungarian ‘dualism’.1998, John Keegan, The First World War, Vintage, published 2000, page 53. From the entry trialism
  • The unsuccessful revolt of Hokow was also engineered in Vietnam.1969, King C. Chen, Vietnam and China, 1938-1954, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 16. From the entry Hokow
  • Attempts have been made from time to time to prove that Jesus was the leader of an unsuccessful zelotic revolt.1954, Ragnar Leivestad, Christ, the Conqueror, page 27. From the entry zelotic
  • Attempts to obtain a hydrazone of scopoline were also unsuccessful.1906, Pharmaceutical Science Series, page 84. From the entry scopoline
  • Following an unsuccessful attempt by Iraqi soldiers to clear the neighborhood on January 8, American troops prepared a full-scale offensive to assist the Iraqis.2019 August 27, William E. Fork, “Haifa Street, Battle of (January 6–9, 2007)”, in Spencer C. Tucker, editor, Middle East Conflicts from…. From the entry clear the neighborhood
  • After an unsuccessful attempt to have The Grapes of Wrath banned statewide (the effort backfired), the AF commissioned and distributed a barrage of counternarratives.2005, Douglas Cazaux Sackman, Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden, University of California Press,, →ISBN, page 280. From the entry statewide
  • As a behabitive, unsuccessful forgiveness is also connected to sincerity — in this case, a sincere willingness to work on oneself and eliminate resentment.2001, Peter Digeser, Political Forgiveness, →ISBN, page 30. From the entry behabitive
  • After many unsuccessful attempts, a "box-bed" was developed which met all requirements for packing practicability and of eye appeal for the owners.1947, Modern Packaging, page 99. From the entry box-bed
  • Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to avoid contact with the skin by cannulising the fistulas and collecting the excretion in a balloon.1932 June, Warren M. Sperry, Robert W. Angevine, “Lipid Excretion: IX. The Secretion of Lipids into the Intestine”, in Rudolph J[ohn]…. From the entry cannulise
  • Unkempt, bearded to the eyes, there he stood clutching his shapeless old cabbage-tree, in mud-stained jumper and threadbare smalls—the very spit of the unsuccessful digger.1917, Henry Handel Richardson, Australia Felix, Echo Library, published 2007, page 31. From the entry smalls
  • This doctrine reaches its height in Plotinus, after whom it degenerated into magic and theurgy in its unsuccessful combat with the victorious Christianity.1911, “Alexandrian School”, in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. From the entry theurgy
  • The scenework proves unsuccessful when Carmichael recalls not the source of her misandry but another episode of overacting, that of castratively biting off the moustache of an amorous man.2016, Leslie H. Abramson, Hitchcock & the Anxiety of Authorship. From the entry misandry
  • Pitcher Kyle Lohse, 29, who has had unsuccessful stints with the Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, seems to have found a home with the St.2008 July 1, Mel Antonen, “Rays, A's using same formula for success”, in USA Today, retrieved 03 Nov 2008. From the entry down on one's luck
  • In detailing the machinations of superrich Democratic activists like George Soros, who blew through close to $30 million of his wealth in an unsuccessful attempt to unelect George W.2007 September 2, Nick Gillespie, “Democratic Vistas”, in New York Times. From the entry unelect
  • This whistling, a means of communication for a pack of dhole regrouping after an unsuccessful hunt, inspired the other common name of this species—the whistling dog.2001, “Dhole”, in Endangered Wildlife and Plants of the World, Marshall Cavendish Corporation, page 451. From the entry dhole
  • In order to determine if the amount of variance explained by drifters was significantly higher than that of groupthink, I created a supercomposite by collapsing across all unsuccessful cases.1996, Pamela Diane Owens, Corporate Decision Making Cultures and Organizational Outcomes. From the entry supercomposite

Meaning of unsuccessful

  1. adjective Failed, not successful.

Full definition of unsuccessful

Questions about unsuccessful in a sentence

How do you use unsuccessful in a sentence?
Unsuccessful is used as an adjective. For example: “His unsuccessful attempt earned him sympathy, condolences, and an occasional good-natured ribbing.”
What is a short sentence with unsuccessful?
“She felt discouraged after several unsuccessful interviews.”
What does unsuccessful mean?
Unsuccessful means failed, not successful.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unsuccessful (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use unsuccessful in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/unsuccessful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.