neglect

EnglishEdit

EtymologyEdit

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.

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /nɪˈɡlɛkt/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛkt

VerbEdit

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
  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.

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TranslationsEdit

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NounEdit

neglect (countable and uncountable, plural neglects)

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

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TranslationsEdit

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.