miserable

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis.

adj

1. In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
   The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation 1910, George Bernard Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children
2. Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.
   He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.
3. Of the weather, extremely unpleasant due to being cold, wet, overcast, etc.
4. Wretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.
   a miserable sinner
5. (obsolete) Causing unhappiness or misery.
6. (obsolete) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.

noun

1. A miserable person; a wretch.
   Dona Carmen repaired to the balcony to chat and jest with, and at, these miserables, who stopped before the door to rest in their progress. All pretended poverty while literally groaning under the weight of their riches. 1838, The Foreign Quarterly Review, volume 21, page 181
   The charge that those who played Jesus in these representations were treated badly by the plays' Jews and Romans left one commissioner cold: in his view, these miserables were beaten much less severely by the players than they were by their actual lords or curacas. 2003, Richard C. Trexler, Reliving Golgotha: The Passion Play of Iztapalapa, pages 46–47
2. (informal, in the plural, with definite article) A state of misery or melancholy.
   By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables. 1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka?, page 10