Link Centre Dictionary

neglect

neg·lect

UK/nɪˈɡlɛkt/ US/nɪˈɡlɛkt/ fairly common
verb (4) noun (5)

verb

1.

leave undone or leave out

  • “How could I miss that typo?”
  • “The workers on the conveyor belt miss one out of ten”
Synonyms
Antonyms
2.

fail to do something; leave something undone

  • “She failed to notice that her child was no longer in his crib”
  • “The secretary failed to call the customer and the company lost the account”
Synonyms
3.

fail to attend to

  • “he neglects his children”
4.

give little or no attention to

  • “Disregard the errors”
Synonyms

noun

1.

lack of attention and due care

Synonyms
2.

the state of something that has been unused and neglected

  • “the house was in a terrible state of neglect”
Synonyms
3.
4.

the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern

Synonyms
5.

Origin

The verb is inherited from Middle English neglect, neclect, derived from Latin neglēctus, perfect passive participle of neglegō (“to make light of, disregard, not to pick up”), itself from nec (“not”) + legō (“to pick up, select”). The noun is from neglēctus (“neglect”). First attested in 1460, the noun in 1588.

Phrases

  • benign neglect
  • child neglect
  • hemispatial neglect

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.