Murphy's law

See also: Murphy's Law

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Murphy's Law

Etymology[edit]

Named after Edward A. Murphy Jr. (1918–1990), a development engineer who worked for a brief time on the rocket-sled experiments of the United States Air Force in 1948.

Proper noun[edit]

Murphy 's law

An adage which states that if anything can go wrong, then it will.
Synonyms: Sod's law, Finagle's law
- 1953, Anne Roe, The Making of a Scientist, page 214:
  I ran into the perfect exemplification of “Murphy's law” at one university, where everything that could go wrong did!
- 2004, Ian Stewart, Math Hysteria, OUP Oxford, →ISBN:
  Thus we find that Murphy's Law is not a coincidence at all, but the consequence of a deep ‘anthropomurphic^[sic] principle’: any universe built along conventional lines that contains intelligent polymurphs will conform to Murphy's Law.
- 2014, Muriel Spark, The Golden Fleece, Carcanet, →ISBN:
  ‘It was an application of Murphy's Law,’ said one Vatican dignitary in a resigned voice. What was Murphy's Law? ‘Murphy's Law,’ said the dignitary, ‘is that everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong.’

Coordinate terms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Muphry's law

Translations[edit]

adage which states that if anything can go wrong it will

Basque: Murphyren legea
Chinese:
Mandarin: 摩菲定理 (Mófēi dìnglǐ), 墨菲定律 (Mòfēi dìnglǜ)
Czech: Murphyho zákon m
Finnish: Murphyn laki (fi)
French: loi de Murphy (fr) f
German: Murphys Gesetz (de) n
Greek: νόμος του Μέρφυ (el) (nómos tou Mérfy)
Hungarian: Murphy törvénye
Japanese: マーフィーの法則 (Māfī-no hōsoku)
Korean: 머피의 법칙 (meopiui beopchik)
Norwegian: Loven om tingenes iboende faenskap.
Portuguese: Lei de Murphy f
Russian: зако́н по́длости (ru) m (zakón pódlosti), зако́н Мёрфи m (zakón Mjórfi)
Spanish: ley de Murphy f
Swedish: lagen om alltings jävlighet (sv), lagen om alltings inneboende ondska, Murphys lag
Turkish: Murphy kanunları pl

Anagrams[edit]

Muphry's law