Search the Dictionary

An act or instance of negligence or carelessness. remarking his beauties, ... I must also point out his negligences and defects. Blair.

; to lay to one's charge. No more accuse thy pen, but charge the crime On native loth and negligence of time. Dryden.

common stock; contributive. Milton. Bonfires of contributory wood. Chapman. Contributory negligence (Law), negligence by an injured party, which combines with the negligence of the injurer in producing the injury, and which bars recovery when it is the proximate cause of the injury. Wharton.

Negligence or fault, as distinguishable from dolus (deceit, fraud), which implies intent, culpa being imputable to defect of intellect, dolus to defect of heart. Wharton.

The quality of being diligent; carefulness; careful attention; -- the opposite of negligence.

broken off. A path that is zigzag, discontinuous, and intersected at every turn by human negligence. De Quincey.

ing spurious or counterfeit) as genuine, true, or worthy; -- usually followed by in. Lest negligence or partiality might admit or fois in abuses corruption. R. Carew. When a scripture has been corrupted . . . by a supposititious foisting of some words in. South.

To lose by sloth or negligence. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Great; palpable; serious; vagrant; shameful; as, a gross mistake; gross injustice; gross negligence.

To disapprove; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure; as, to improve negligence. [Obs.] Chapman. When he rehearsed his preachings and his doing unto the high apostles, they could improve nothing. Tyndale.

The quality of being inadvertent; lack of heedfulness or attentiveness; inattention; negligence; as, many mistakes proceed from inadvertence. Inadvertency, or want of attendance to the sense and intention of our prayers. Jer. Taylor.

Want of application, attention, or diligence; negligence; indolence.

Neglect; negligence; remissness; neglect to do a thing at the proper time; delay to assert a claim. It ill became him to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewd attorney. Macaulay.

r pass from one proprietor to another, or from the original destination, by the omission, negligence, or failure of some one, as a patron, a legatee, etc.

To part with unintentionally or unwillingly, as by accident, misfortune, negligence, penalty, forfeit, etc.; to be deprived of; as, to lose money from one's purse or pocket, or in business or gaming; to lose an arm or a leg by amputation; to lose men in battle. Fair Venus wept the sad disaster Of having lost her favori…

A neglect, negligence, or contempt.

Habitual carelessness; negligence. Age breeds neglect in all. Denham.

The state of being negligent; negligence. [Obs.] Shak.

Apt to neglect; customarily neglectful; characterized by negligence; careless; heedless; culpably careless; showing lack of attention; as, disposed in negligent order. "Be thou negligent of fame." Swift. He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor. Rambler.

on; specifically, to suffocate by lying upon; as, to overlie an infant. Quain. A woman by negligence overlieth her child in her sleeping. Chaucer.