NEGLIGENCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does negligence mean? 

• NEGLIGENCE (noun)
  The noun NEGLIGENCE has 2 senses:

1. failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances

2. the trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern

  Familiarity information: NEGLIGENCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NEGLIGENCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

carelessness; neglect; negligence; nonperformance

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

nonaccomplishment; nonachievement (an act that does not achieve its intended goal)

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

dereliction (willful negligence)

comparative negligence ((law) negligence allocated between the plaintiff and the defendant with a corresponding reduction in damages paid to the plaintiff)

concurrent negligence ((law) negligence of two of more persons acting independently; the plaintiff may sue both together or separately)

contributory negligence ((law) behavior by the plaintiff that contributes to the harm resulting from the defendant's negligence)

criminal negligence; culpable negligence ((law) recklessly acting without reasonable caution and putting another person at risk of injury or death (or failing to do something with the same consequences))

neglect of duty ((law) breach of a duty)

dodging; escape; evasion (nonperformance of something distasteful (as by deceit or trickery) that you are supposed to do)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of neglecting responsibilities and lacking concern

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

neglect; neglectfulness; negligence

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

carelessness; sloppiness (the quality of not being careful or taking pains)

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

delinquency; dereliction; willful neglect (a tendency to be negligent and uncaring)

laxity; laxness; remissness; slackness (the quality of being lax and neglectful)

Derivation:

negligent (characterized by neglect and undue lack of concern)

 Context examples 

My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be wrong.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“Well! look about you now, and make up for your negligence,” said Steerforth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

And from these circumstances, he replied (his quick eye fixed on hers), you infer perhaps the probability of some negligence—some—(involuntarily she shook her head)—or it may be—of something still less pardonable.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It's a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence (...) The fire was known about, but it was played down.

(UK documentary claims fire weakened RMS Titanic, Wikinews)

This strategy may work as a consequence of users' negligence towards password security of stationary devices, which the users do not directly interact with in their everyday life while leaving them exposed to the Internet.

(Distributed malware attacks Dyn DNS, takes down websites in US, Wikinews)

It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

After waiting a week, two weeks, and half a week longer, desperation conquered diffidence, and he wrote to the editor of The Billow, suggesting that possibly through some negligence of the business manager his little account had been overlooked.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement of the furniture; or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Her greatest wonder on the subject soon became—not that Susan should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience against her better knowledge—but that so much better knowledge, so many good notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions of what ought to be; she, who had had no cousin Edmund to direct her thoughts or fix her principles.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)