IMPRUDENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does imprudence mean? 

• IMPRUDENCE (noun)
  The noun IMPRUDENCE has 1 sense:

1. a lack of caution in practical affairs

  Familiarity information: IMPRUDENCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPRUDENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A lack of caution in practical affairs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("imprudence" is a kind of...):

incaution; incautiousness (the trait of forgetting or ignoring possible danger)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "imprudence"):

heedlessness; mindlessness; rashness (the trait of acting rashly and without prudence)

improvidence; shortsightedness (a lack of prudence and care by someone in the management of resources)

Antonym:

prudence (discretion in practical affairs)

Derivation:

imprudent (not prudent or wise)

 Context examples 

Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

But the imprudence of such a match!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Well, said Miss Crawford, and do you not scold us for our imprudence?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave so precious a thing in the office behind me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I am not conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own, I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Ah! Great imprudence, Master Copperfield.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the reader may be able to judge in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable—whether by her imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy—whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character, or turning her out of doors.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)