Editing Luck (section)

==Etymology and definition==
[[Image:1926WhyBeUnlucky.jpg|thumb|225px|right|1927 advertisement for lucky jewellery. "Why Be Unlucky?".]]

The English noun ''luck'' appears comparatively late, during the 1480s, as a loan from [[Low German]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]] or Frisian ''luk'', a short form of ''gelucke'' ([[Middle High German]] ''gelücke''). Compare to old Slavic word ''lukyj'' (''лукый'') - ''appointed by destiny'' and old Russian ''luchaj'' (''лучаи'') - ''destiny, fortune''. It likely entered English as a [[gambling]] term, and the context of gambling remains detectable in the word's connotations; luck is a way of understanding a personal chance event. Luck has three aspects:<ref>
Rescher, N., [https://books.google.com/books?id=tSeYae1nrwcC Luck: the brilliant randomness of everyday life] p. 32. "Luck accordingly involves three things: (1) a beneficiary or maleficiary, (2) a development that is benign (positive) or malign (negative) from the stand point of the interests of the affected individual, and that, moreover, (3) is fortuitous (unexpected, chancy, unforeseeable.)"</ref><ref>[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/recent_news/chance_news_4.15.html CHANCE News 4.15] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170618074910/http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/recent_news/chance_news_4.15.html |date=2017-06-18 }} ...the definition in the Oxford English dictionary: "the fortuitous happening of an event favorable or unfavorable to the interest of a person"</ref><ref>Rescher, N., [https://books.google.com/books?id=tSeYae1nrwcC Luck: the brilliant randomness of everyday life] p. 28. "Luck is a matter of having something good or bad happen that lies outside the horizon of effective foreseeability."</ref>
* Luck is good or bad.<ref>Rescher, N., [https://books.google.com/books?id=tSeYae1nrwcC Luck: the brilliant randomness of everyday life] p. 32. "Luck thus always incorporates a normative element of good or bad: someone must be affected positively or negatively by an event before its realization can properly be called lucky."</ref>
* Luck is the result of chance.<ref>Rescher, N., [https://books.google.com/books?id=tSeYae1nrwcC Luck: the brilliant randomness of everyday life] p. 32. ..."that as a far as the affected person is concerned, the outcome came about "by accident." "</ref>
* Luck applies to a sentient being.

Before the adoption of ''luck'' at the end of the Middle Ages, Old English and [[Middle English]] expressed the notion of "good fortune" with the word ''[[:wikt:speed|speed]]'' (Middle English ''spede'', Old English ''[[:wikt:sped#Old English|spēd]]''); ''speed'' besides "good fortune" had the wider meaning of "[[prosperity]], [[Profit (accounting)|profit]], [[wikt:abundance|abundance]]"; it is not associated with the notion of probability or chance but rather with that of [[fate]] or divine help; a bestower of success can also be called ''speed'', as in "Christ be our speed" (William Robertson, ''Phraseologia generalis'', 1693).

The notion of probability was expressed by the Latin loanword ''chance'', adopted in Middle English from the late 13th century, literally describing an outcome as a "falling" (as it were of [[dice]]), via Old French ''cheance'' from Late Latin ''cadentia'' "falling". [[Fortuna]], the Roman goddess of fate or luck, was popular as an allegory in medieval times, and even though it was not strictly reconcilable with Christian theology, it became popular in learned circles of the High Middle Ages to portray her as a servant of God in distributing success or failure in a characteristically "fickle" or unpredictable way, thus introducing the notion of ''chance''.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}}