neglect

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin neglēctus (“disregarded”), the past participle of neglegō (“to disregard, make light of, fail to care for”), a variant of neclegō.^[2][3][4] That verb is made of nec (“not”), an extended form of ne (“not”), and legō (“to pick up, choose”),^[2][3][5] so that it literally meant "not to pick up".^[3] The negative goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ne and the verb to *leg- (“to collect, gather”).^[3][5] The same Latin verb gave negligence and negligent, which came into English earlier through French,^[6][7] and legend and lecture are from legō.^[4][8] An adjective neglect, "neglected", is recorded from about 1425, borrowed from neglect or straight from the Latin participle;^[4][2] it went out of use and gave way to the participle of the verb.^[4] The noun is from the verb, partly after neglēctus "a neglecting".^[9][3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To disregard, to pay little or no respect or attention to someone or something: a1460, in Osbern Bokenham's Lives of Saints.^[2] Barnhart dates the verb to 1529, in Thomas More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies, and Etymonline to the 1520s, in the sense "omit to do".^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Most of the modern senses had appeared by the mid-16th century: to leave a duty undone from 1533, to fail to take proper care of something from about 1538, and to fail to do something through carelessness from 1548.^[2][10] A sense "to leave out, discard" was used from 1511 to 1646.^[2][10] The noun is recorded from the 1580s or 1590s,^[3][11][9] with Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (1598) as the OED's first example of neglect of a person.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as an instance of inattention, careless or scornful treatment, and the state of being unregarded.^[12] The sense of failing to look after a child or other dependant, amounting to cruelty, is recorded from before 1618;^[2] it is the sense of the modern legal and social term child neglect.^[2]

Timeline

• ?a1425 – adjective neglect, neglected (obsolete).^[2][4]
• a1460 – verb, to disregard or slight.^[2]
• 1511–1646 – to leave out or discard (obsolete).^[2][10]
• 1529 – Barnhart's first date for the verb, in Thomas More.^[4]
• 1533 – to fail to perform a duty.^[2]
• a1538 – to fail to take proper care of.^[2]
• 1548 – to fail through carelessness to do something.^[2]
• 1597 – noun, disregard or indifference.^[2][13]
• 1610 – noun, negligence.^[2]
• a1618 – failure to look after a dependent person.^[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To fail to give someone or something the care or attention they need: The garden had been neglected for years.
2. To fail to do something, through carelessness or forgetfulness: He neglected to lock the back door.
3. To pay no attention to; to disregard or slight.

Noun

1. Lack of proper care or attention; negligence.
2. The state of being neglected: The old mill fell into neglect.
3. Failure to look after a child or other dependent person properly, especially when it amounts to cruelty.

Word family

• neglecter
• neglectedly
• neglectedness
• overneglect
• neglectful
• benign neglect

Related words

• negligee
• negligent
• negligence
• legend
• lecture
• elect

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster