feckless

Feb. 15th, 2021 07:49 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
Speaking of words with little-known opposite forms, there's:


feckless (FEK-les) - adj., ineffectual, incompetent; lacking purpose or responsibility, indifferent, lazy.


Describes someone who lacks feck, but what exactly is feck? It turns out to be a shortened form (via Scots English) of effect -- and yes, originally it was fectless, but even the Scots found that -t- hard to say convin. So someone who is feckless has no effect. But we never heard a feck person, or feckful, or whatever the way to say that is.

---L.

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