Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To pay little or no attention to; fail to heed; disregard.
  • transitive verb To fail to care for or attend to properly.
  • transitive verb To fail to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight.
  • noun The act or an instance of neglecting something.
  • noun The state or fact of being neglected.
  • noun Habitual lack of care.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of neglecting; the act of treating with slight attention, heedlessness, or disrespect some person or thing that requires attention, care, or respect.
  • noun Omission; oversight; the not doing a thing that should or might be done.
  • noun Disregard; slight; omission of due attention or civilities.
  • noun Negligence; habitual want of regard.
  • noun The state of being disregarded.
  • noun Synonyms Failure, default, heedlessness.
  • noun 1, 3, and Remissness, etc. See negligence.
  • To treat carelessly or heedlessly; forbear to attend to or treat with respect; be remiss in attention or duty toward; pay little or no attention to; slight: as, to neglect one's best interests; to neglect one's friends.
  • To overlook or omit; disregard: as, the difference is so small that it may be neglected.
  • To omit to do or perform; let slip; leave undone; fail through heedlessness to do or in doing (something): often with an infinitive as object.
  • . To cause to be neglected or deferred.
  • Synonyms Neglect, Disregard, Slight. Slight always expresses intention: it applies to persons or things. Neglect and disregard apply more often to things, and may or may not express intention; disregard is more often intentional than neglect. Only neglect may be followed by an infinitive: as, to neglect to write a letter; among things it generally applies to action that is needed, while disregard commonly applies to failure to heed or notice: as, to disregard counsel, a hint, a request, the lessons of experience, the signs of coming rain; to neglect a duty. See negligent and negligence.
  • Neglected.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Omission of proper attention; avoidance or disregard of duty, from heedlessness, indifference, or willfulness; failure to do, use, or heed anything; culpable disregard.
  • noun Omission of attention or civilities; slight.
  • noun Habitual carelessness; negligence.
  • noun The state of being disregarded, slighted, or neglected.
  • noun A deliberate policy of minimizing public discussion of a controversial issue [e.g. by the president] on the theory that excessive discussion in itself is harmful or counterproductive.
  • transitive verb Not to attend to with due care or attention; to forbear one's duty in regard to; to allow to pass unimproved, unheeded, undone, etc.; to omit; to disregard; to slight
  • transitive verb To omit to notice; to forbear to treat with attention or respect; to slight.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To disregard or pay little attention to something.
  • verb transitive To fail to care for, or attend to something.
  • verb transitive To fail to do or carry out something due to oversight or carelessness.
  • noun The act of neglecting.
  • noun The state of being neglected.
  • noun Habitual lack of care.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb fail to do something; leave something undone
  • noun lack of attention and due care
  • noun willful lack of care and attention
  • noun the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern
  • verb give little or no attention to
  • verb fail to attend to
  • noun the state of something that has been unused and neglected
  • verb leave undone or leave out
  • noun failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin neglegere, neglēct- : neg-, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + legere, to choose, pick up; see leg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

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Examples

  • In the whispered conversations that were conducted at his cribside, they used the word neglect.

    Between Expectations Md Meghan Maclean Weir 2011

  • In the whispered conversations that were conducted at his cribside, they used the word neglect.

    Between Expectations Md Meghan Maclean Weir 2011

  • And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our neglect and stupidity!

    Burr Junior George Manville Fenn 1870

  • I do not mean that she felt no pain at the thought of going back to her home alone, or that she had quite ceased to blame herself for what she called her neglect of her suffering sister.

    Christie Redfern's Troubles Edward Barnard Lintott 1859

  • The region has seen decades of unrest stemming mostly from local militants 'uprisings over what they call neglect of the moneymaking region.

    WN.com - Articles related to Ill leader, violence and oil woes plague Nigeria 2010

  • The region has seen decades of unrest stemming mostly from local militants 'uprisings over what they call neglect of the moneymaking region.

    WN.com - Articles related to Shell, Chevron seek to renew Nigerian offshore leases 2010

  • Donnelly, 37, ran a campaign that emphasized his relative youth - and a recent illness of Slaughter's - as well as what he called her neglect of all constituents except the ones in Monroe County.

    Tonawanda News Homepage 2010

  • Newspapers, neighbors and even some family members in Nigeria now blame this lack of supervision, a symptom of what they call the neglect among the Nigerian elite, for facilitating Mr. Abdulmutallab's slide toward extremism.

    post-gazette.com - News 2010

  • Newspapers, neighbors and even some family members in Nigeria now blame this lack of supervision, a symptom of what they call the neglect among the Nigerian elite, for facilitating Mr. Abdulmutallab's slide toward extremism.

    post-gazette.com - News 2010

  • Mendes also criticised what he called the neglect of the indigenous community by the government.

    MercoPress 2009

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