Definition of NEGLECT

neglect

Plural: neglects

Noun

  • lack of attention and due care
  • the state of something that has been unused and neglected
    • "the house was in a terrible state of neglect"
  • willful lack of care and attention
  • the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern
  • failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances
  • The act of neglecting.
  • The state of being neglected.
  • Habitual lack of care.

Verb

Verb Forms: neglected, neglecting, neglects

  • To fail to care for or pay attention to.
  • leave undone or leave out
  • fail to do something; leave something undone
  • fail to attend to
    • "he neglects his children"
  • give little or no attention to
  • To fail to care for or attend to something.
  • To omit to notice; to forbear to treat with attention or respect; to slight.
  • To fail to do or carry out something due to oversight or carelessness.
  • To ignore for the sake of simplifying calculations without significantly affecting accuracy.

Examples

  • He often neglected checking for parallel plays, missing out on easy points.
  • This problem says to neglect air resistance.
  • to neglect duty or business;  to neglect to pay debts
  • to neglect strangers
  • We can neglect this term, as it approaches zero in the limit anyway.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English neclect, from Latin neglēctus, perfect passive participle of neglegō (“make light of, disregard, not to pick up”), a variant of neclegō, itself from nec (“not”) + legō (“pick up, select”). Recorded since a. 1460, as noun since 1588.

Synonyms

carelessness, disregard, disuse, drop, fail, ignore, leave out, miss, neglectfulness, negligence, nonperformance, omit, overleap, overlook, pretermit, forget, let slide, take no notice of

Antonyms

attend to, care, consider, consideration, mind, notice, pay attention, reck, regard

Scrabble Score: 10

neglect: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
neglect: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
neglect: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 14

neglect: valid Words With Friends Word