murphy's law

1. 1.

   humorous axiom stating that anything that can go wrong will go wrong

   SynonymsSod's Law

   Broadergnome

Questions about murphy's law

What does murphy's law mean?

murphy's law means "humorous axiom stating that anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

What is another word for murphy's law?

Close synonyms include Sod's Law. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is murphy's law a common word?

murphy's law is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.