The abstract noun 'misfortune' is interpreted differently by every Russian speaker who is interested in its meaning (its understanding and its defining). What information about the word is there in the mind of Russian informants? The principal problem is that all the interpretations do not contain the relevant attributes of the meaning therefore it is impossible to form a differentiated conception about the fact nominated by this word. Probably, there is a conception of 'misfortune' above its definition; maybe, it is a conceptual word meaning. By reason of this lexicographical problem we are interested in extracting of the maximal quantity of semantic elements of the word meaning by the analysis of the contexts from the Russian National Corpus. We preferred the syntagmatic analysis; it is an analysis of word combinations and predicative constructions which is accentuated on the combinatory characteristics of the researched word. The researched word is an abstract noun; therefore, the primary variant of our analysis is the analysis of the object's connotations represented on the basis of the found connections of the word 'misfortune' with other words. The method of object's connotations representation is the method of discovery of figurative semantic elements in the word meaning. As a result of the analysis, we can see a figurative-ontological portrait of the word 'misfortune' very clearly. ' Misfortune' is someone big or something hard who / that attacks human body or soul. The most important for the person are the consequences of his/her ' misfortune' and, in the first place, how it attacks person's body. The person senses ' misfortune' using all the organs of sense except hearing but organs of sight are used more often than others. 'Misfortune' (someone or something) is often connected with a certain local fixed situation and with the irreversibility of the event that happened. The attention is accentuated on these outside situations if the person marked the result of the event that happened (or imagined this result in future when the action is realized in present) as its destructive consequences. Dominance is a characteristic for 'misfortune' because it is assimilated to object, to substance or to being someone excelling people in different characteristics or in strength. In the majority of the contexts ` misfortune' crushes the person. As a result, we can represent the most relevant attribute of the word meaning. It is ` caused by a certain irreversible destruction' (destructive action / operation of someone / something). Thereafter, we can say the fact that is nominated by the abstract noun ` misfortune' is a negative situation. As a rule, it is a "physical" situation (human body "participates" in the outside world), but it may cause emotions in the person.