feckless

adj

Etymology: From Scots feckless, variant of Scots fectless (“ineffectual”) (an aphetic variant of effectless), equivalent to effect + -less.

1. Lacking purpose.

   “It is the beauty of great games when they are played at their highest level and the extraordinary thing now is that we do not have to trawl back through all the years of your inexorable progress from feckless beach boy to master sportsman.”

2. Without skill, ineffective, incompetent.

   “This was the West Lancashire Railway, an ambitious but feckless little concern which, in a life lasting a quarter of a century, never earned a dividend, failed to keep up its debenture payments (despite a dangerous attempt to do so by issuing more debentures) and ended up in the hands of a receiver.”

   ““Lana, when I want you to talk, I will tell you. And until then, zip it.” “Wha-- what did I do?” “Nothing.” “Yeah, Lana.” “Which is why these feckless idiots lost 200 kilos of cocaine.” “Yeah, Lan-- oh. OK. Technically. But then we stole a plane loaded with, like, twice as much cocaine.” “Is this the part where you tell me to look under my seat?””

3. Lacking the courage to act in any meaningful way.

   “China is “proving to be a feckless friend for its authoritarian allies,” Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China under President Joe Biden, wrote on X.”

4. Lacking vitality.