DERELICT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Derelict

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/dˈɛrəlˌɪkt/ Listen

adjective

Derelict adj.

Given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; left and abandoned; as, derelict lands. "The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion."

Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful. "They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his (Chatham's) friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy." "A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties."

noun

Derelict n. (Law)

(a)

A thing voluntary abandoned or willfully cast away by its proper owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.

(b)

A tract of land left dry by the sea, and fit for cultivation or use.

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Etymology of 'Derelict'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Derelict" Quotes from Famous Books

... honesty, and industry without a peer. She hated to dress or to leave the kitchen, but she washed, baked, and did the housework without assistance, and was kind to the children. These constituted her inner circle, but she was always taking in and caring for derelict children. At this time there were several in the house or yard. Two were twins five months old, whom she had found lying on the ground discarded and forlorn, and who had developed into beautiful children. Their father ...

— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... the companion and left Marjorie and her father below, until he was called to have his coffee. When they went on deck again Corregidor Island was astern, rising out of the channel like a derelict battleship. ...

— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... but this is not one of them; there are admonitions, probations, suspensions, in several minor cases; mercy is shown the derelict, in those cases he is gently used, and in time he can get back into the fold—even when he has repeated his offence. But let him think, just once, without getting his thinker set to Eddy time, and that is enough; his head comes off. There is no second offence, and there ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... judging from the screeds that were received as to "the true spirit of salvage" we were wrong, and found that the returns of salvage that got the most marks were those containing such items as "socks 200" (got generally from derelict Quarter-Master's Stores found in the forward area, and packed into a limber in about half-a-minute), but the work entailed in hauling 18-pounders and limbers out of dangerous parts of the front, apparently counted for little. Towards the end ...

— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... That meant that its gyros were stopped; that it was helpless, drifting, disabled, powerless to avoid hurtling meteoric stones. Had it blundered unawares into the belt of swarms—been struck before the danger was realized? Was it a derelict, ...

— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson

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