neglect

Borrowed 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 1529, as noun since 1588.

• IPA^(key): /nɪˈɡlɛkt/

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• Rhymes: -ɛkt

neglect (third-person singular simple present neglects, present participle neglecting, simple past and past participle neglected)

1. (transitive) To fail to care for or attend to something.

   to neglect duty or business;  to neglect to pay debts

   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene iv]:

     I hope
     My absence doth neglect no great designs.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     This, my long sufferance and my day of grace,
     Those who neglect and scorn, shall never taste.

   • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. […] But out of sight is out of mind. And that, together with the inherent yuckiness of the subject, means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair.

2. (transitive) To omit to notice; to forbear to treat with attention or respect; to slight.

   to neglect strangers

3. (transitive) To fail to do or carry out something due to oversight or carelessness.
   • 1972 December 29, Richard Schickel, “Masterpieces underrated and overlooked”, in Life, volume 73, number 25, page 22:

     A friend of mine who runs an intellectual magazine was grousing about his movie critic, complaining that though the fellow had liked The Godfather (page 58), he had neglected to label it clearly as a masterpiece.

4. (transitive, mathematics) To ignore for the sake of simplifying calculations without significantly affecting accuracy.

   We can neglect this term, as it approaches zero in the limit anyway.

   This problem says to neglect air resistance.

• (fail to care for): let slide
• (to omit to notice): disregard, take no notice of; see also Thesaurus:ignore
• (failure due to carelessness): fail, forget

• (fail to care for): care, mind, reck; see also Thesaurus:care
• (to omit to notice): consider, notice, regard; see also Thesaurus:pay attention

• negligee
• negligent
• negligence

neglect (countable and uncountable, plural neglects)

1. The act of neglecting.
2. The state of being neglected.
3. Habitual lack of care.

• carelessness
• negligence

• consideration
• notice
• regard