Definition of "unhappy"

A moment of time may make us unhappy forever.

1728, John Gay, The Beggar's Opera

The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with a hiss into the road.

1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 56

The people, if they are not strangely bentAgainst our welfare, never will consentTo this unhappy match, foreboding ill:What's it to us, if th' adverse nation will?

1563 March 30, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […]

Leduc, as is true of many other unhappies, is largely a confessional writer: her subject is herself, and her gift is a driving, vivacious power that turns her incurable, inveterate unhappiness into a series of dramas […]

1972, The New Yorker (volume 48, part 1, page 109)

A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments, By you unhappied and disfigured clean

1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act 3, scene 1]

In the greate desire I have unto your grace's service, nothing has more unhappied me than the wante of opportunitie in which I might expresse the character of my harte that onlie takes of your impressions.

1625, Sir John Eliot, Letter to the duke of Buckingham

They unhappied their estates by sinning against God, and of glorious Angels became unclean devils: there is not part of the work of Gods hands so eternally cast away, reserved in chains of darknesse for the judgement of the last day.

1637, Samuel Page, The Broken Heart, page 29

Nor do these unhappying beings, after they become the property of Europeans (from whom as a more civilized people, more humanity might naturally be expected), find their situation in the least amended.

1788, Alexander Falconbridge, The African Slave Trade

Most unhappying! I had to get up, have a nice hot bath and then go out into the cold rain to Ted's for breakfast.

2011, Jeanne Comings Majdalany, “In Foreign Lands — A Teacher and A Learner”, in Anne Peet Carrington and Børre Ludvigsen, editor, Fill the bathtub!, page 65