unsuccessful
[adjective]
Synonyms:
- useless, failed, fruitless, futile, unavailing, unproductive, vain
- unlucky, hapless, luckless, unfortunate

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English Thesaurus: fail, go wrong, not work, be unsuccessful, be a failure, ...

[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲

un‧suc‧cess‧ful /ˌʌnsəkˈsesfəl◂/ adjective
[Word Family: noun: success, succession, successor; adjective: successful ≠ unsuccessful, successive; verb: succeed; adverb: successfully ≠ unsuccessfully]
not having a successful result or not achieving what you wanted to achieve:
an unsuccessful attempt to climb Everest
unsuccessful in (doing) something
We have been unsuccessful in finding a new manager.
—unsuccessfully adverb:
He tried unsuccessfully to make them change their decision.

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

unsuccessful

largely unsuccessful
The advertising campaign has been largely unsuccessful.
singularly unsuccessful (=unsuccessful to a great and noticeable degree)
The education service has been singularly unsuccessful in achieving greater equality.
ultimately unsuccessful
In both cases negotiators were ultimately unsuccessful.
an unsuccessful attempt/bid/effort
We made several unsuccessful attempts to tackle the problem.
an unsuccessful campaign
He quit politics following his unsuccessful presidential campaign.
prove unsuccessful
The search for a planet like the Earth has so far proved unsuccessful.

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

fail to not succeed – used about people, plans, methods etc:
The plan failed.
They failed to persuade her to change her mind.
This method never fails.
go wrong if something you do goes wrong, it fails after starting well:
The experiment went wrong when the chemicals combined to form a poisonous gas.
not work if something does not work, it does not do what you want it to do:
The drugs don’t work.
I tried to fix it with glue, but that didn’t work.
be unsuccessful /ˌʌnsəkˈsesfəl◂/ to not have the result you wanted:
His first attempt to get a teaching job was unsuccessful.
The search was unsuccessful.
be a failure to be unsuccessful, with the result that you have wasted your efforts:
The government’s 5-year plan to modernize the economy was a complete failure.
backfire if a plan or action backfires, it does the opposite of what it was intended to do:
His plan to get attention backfired, and instead of being promoted he lost his job.
in vain if you try to do something in vain, you fail to do it:
They tried in vain to save him.
All her efforts had been in vain.

[TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲