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Negligent   /nˈɛglədʒənt/  /nˈɛglɪdʒənt/   Listen
Negligent

adjective
1.
Characterized by neglect and undue lack of concern.  "Negligent of detail" , "Negligent in his correspondence"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Negligent" Quotes from Famous Books



... fence, his fieldward-faring eyes take in the beauty of the cornfield, "the heaven of blue inwoven with a heaven of green." One tall corn captain becomes to his mind the symbol of the poet-soul sublime, who takes from all that he may give to all. The picture of the thriftless and negligent Southern farmer, "a gamester's cat'spaw and a banker's slave," shows Lanier's keen insight into Southern conditions, which he had, while living in Macon, studied with much care and which he now lifted into the realm of poetry. The ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... do not suppose that either you or the Choiseuls can give me any cause of fear." M. de Sartines was thunderstruck; my boldness astonished him. At length he said, "Madame, you are angry with me causelessly; I am more negligent than culpable. It is useless to say this to the king." "I will not conceal from you, sir, that he knows it all, and is greatly discontented with you. " "I am lost then," said M. de Sartines. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... her. She is too wild, undisciplined, and independent, and though she knows a great deal, it is in a strange, wild way. She reads everything, composes German verses, has imagined and put together a fairy world, dress, language, music, everything, and talks to them in the garden; but she is sadly negligent of her own appearance, and is, as Sterling calls her, Miss Orson. . . . Lucie now goes to a Dr. Biber, who has five other pupils (boys) and his own little child. She seems to take to Greek, with which her father is very anxious to have her thoroughly ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... manner, is a most important precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men, who from their infancy are broken into method, observe. This negligent kind of guesswork, for what other epithet can be used to point out the random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense, never brought to the test of reason? prevents their generalizing matters of fact, so they do to-day, what they did yesterday, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... had found out when he was very young that his mother gave him everything he asked for, not because she loved him, but because she was too weak to refuse, and too indolent to care for the result. He had found her inaccurate in what she told him, and negligent in fulfilling the little promises upon which a child builds such great hopes, though she was always ready to pay damages for her forgetfulness by excessive indulgence in something else, when it was agreeable to her. Greif had discovered ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... require "the devil to find some missing ill for idle hands to do." You have much more to enjoy with all that good music thrown in, and I am glad for you. We get books and papers enough, and I am correcting proofs of the poem I was too negligent about in London. Many distractions stood in the way of that. After all, we have attained the main object of our journey, the complete re-establishment of Sarianna's health, who walks twice a day, just as of old. I am cheered, too, by letters from Robert, the last ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... rule and doctrine, opening the door with the keys of His precious Blood, shed with ardent love and hatred against sin. As says this sweet, loving Word, "Behold, I have made you a way, and opened the door with My blood. Be you then not negligent to follow it, and do not sit yourselves down in self-love, ignorantly failing to know the Way, and presumptuously wishing to choose it after your own fashion, and not after Mine who made it. Rise up then, and follow Me: ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... a constant visitor at Beauseincourt, when on his estates. He was, however, of a roving disposition, and, though tenderly attached to his wife, was often absent, negligent, and careless of her feelings. He was a renowned duelist, and deemed a challenge the essential element and result of every unsettled discussion. A typical Southerner of his day, I felt keen interest ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... or escape censure. How is he vilified by [127] Caligula, Agellius, Fabius, and Lipsius himself, his chief propugner? In eo pleraque pernitiosa, saith the same Fabius, many childish tracts and sentences he hath, sermo illaboratus, too negligent often and remiss, as Agellius observes, oratio vulgaris et protrita, dicaces et ineptae, sententiae, eruditio plebeia, an homely shallow writer as he is. In partibus spinas et fastidia habet, saith [128]Lipsius; and, as in all his other works, so especially ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... nation does not depend exclusively upon its own will, nor upon the beneficent policy of neighboring powers; and that nation which is found totally unprepared for the exigencies and dangers of war, although it come without having given warning of its approach, is criminally negligent of its honor and its duty. I can not too strongly repeat the recommendation already made to place the seaboard in a proper state for defense and promptly to provide the means for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... whatever he can conceive; the question is, what can he conceive? As he sat at the piano playing Chopin, I thought of Busoni, of the Bechstein piano, of what fingers can do, of many other extraneous things, never of Chopin. I saw the pianist with the Christ-like head, the carefully negligent elegance of his appearance, and I heard wonderful sounds coming out of the Bechstein piano; but, try as hard as I liked, I could not feel the contact of soul and instrument, I could not feel that a human being was expressing himself in sound. A task was magnificently ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... may be said, instead of the former, in case the Presbyter shall see the people negligent to come ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... ourselves in touch with God, His hand will slip out of ours before we know that it is gone, and we shall fancy that we feel the impression of the fingers long after they have been taken away from our negligent palms. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... appear to me that I have conveyed any adequate idea of Burr's military character. It may be aided a little by reviewing the effects he produced. The troops of which he took command were, at the time he took the command, undisciplined, negligent, and discontented. Desertions were frequent. In a few days these very men were transformed into brave and honest defenders; orderly, contented, and cheerful; confident in their own courage, and loving to adoration their commander, whom every man considered as his personal friend. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... fists and feet, teeth and tough-skulled heads; every hard spot and every sharp angle bored and jabbed at the crushing mass which swiftly closed them in. They struggled like cats against numbers, and held the wall until the sound of battle brought the negligent guard running, and the muzzle of a carbine peeped through the grating. Burr and Ellis came out with scarce a rag and with many bruises, but with the new-born lust of battle hot within them. Ellis glowered at the ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... his influences have been ever ready: not by angels; their wings have never tired when sent on errands of mercy. All that Heaven could do has been done, consistently with the all-wise arrangement of committing an important agency to the church. The church has been slothful and negligent. Each generation of Christians has in turn received the vast responsibility, neglected it in a great measure, and transmitted it to the next. The guilt of this neglect ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... from these statistics, that the European powers are not so negligent in educating their officers, and in instructing and disciplining their soldiers, as some in this ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... negligent of your lordship's concerns in my consideration of my own. You'll be wishing me to land you at ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... not negligent) or ill-luck, which is unavoidable, and attends the best directed efforts, you sit down to table with your stock ill arranged or incomplete, or of an inferior quality. Your object is to make men laugh. It must be done. I have known a pathetic passage, quoted timely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... stout, self-satisfied Swiss, whose fawning manner was possibly accounted for by his statement that he journeyed to New York to engage in the trade of restaurateur in partnership with his brother; Crane, long and awkward and homely, of saturnine cast, slow of gesture and negligent as to dress, his humorous sense clouding a power of shrewd intelligence; and Senor Arturo Velasco, of Buenos Aires, middle-aged, apparently extremely well-to-do, a thoughtful type, more self-contained ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... looked on. Westby stood in an almost negligent attitude, with his gun lowered; the trap was sprung, the clay pigeon flew—and then was shattered in the midst of its flight. It seemed to Irving that Westby hardly brought his gun to his shoulder to take aim. It could not all be luck either; ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... precise position. Apprehension of the boats now ceased, though Ithuel fancied, from time to time, that he heard smothered sounds, like those of oars imperfectly muffled. Raoul laughed at his conceits and apprehensions, and, to confess the truth, he became negligent of his duty again, in the soothing delight of finding himself, once more free, in all but heart, in the company of Ghita. In this manner the yawl moved ahead, though with materially diminished speed, until, by the formation of the heights, and the appearance of the lamps and candles on the piano, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... was followed as closely by the contemporary Roman as "imperials" and "ram's-horn" moustaches have been imitated in later times. The hair was kept carefully neither too long nor too short. Only in time of mourning was it permitted to grow to a negligent length. By preference it should be somewhat wavy, but there was no parting. Dandies had their hair curled with the tongs and perfumed, so at to smell "all over the theatre." If they were bald, they wore a wig; sometimes they actually had imitation hair ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... trust company had been, even from the easy American standard, a rather negligent parent, chiefly concerned with its ward's fortune, and hastened to say defensively,—"We placed you with an excellent woman,"—Adelle had placed herself, but it made no difference,—"one in whom we have every ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... services; but the junior pushed him aside without ceremony whenever he thought there was like to be a good show in the pews. As for those courtesies which the old need, to soften the sense of declining faculties and failing attractions, the younger pastor bestowed them in public, but was negligent of them, to say the least, when ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... lays the foundation for consumption, paralysis and heart disease. It weakens the memory, makes a boy careless, negligent and listless. It even makes many lose their minds; others, when grown, commit suicide. How often mothers see their little boys handling themselves, and let it pass, because they think the boy will outgrow the habit, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... thing had been settled before all the world, would not such treatment on a mother's part be equal to infanticide? And then as to Mr. Gibson himself! Camilla was not prone to think little of her own charms, but she had been unable not to perceive that her lover had become negligent in his personal attentions to her. An accepted lover, who deserves to have been accepted, should devote every hour at his command to his mistress. But Mr. Gibson had of late been so chary of his presence at Heavitree, that Camilla ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... convey that suggestion of determination and resolution, one might almost say obstinacy, lying behind the gay, devil-may-care roguishness of her bewitching glance. Her slim, girlish figure he has portrayed with amazing accuracy, also the beautiful negligent manner in which she invariably carried her hunting-crop; her left hand is lovingly caressing the head of her faithful hound, Roger, who, Raymond Waffle informs us, after his mistress's death refused to bury bones anywhere else but ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... fire should break out and the goods be burned, unless it happened by his own gross negligence, he would not be liable for the loss. So, too, if a thief should break into his warehouse and steal the goods, he would not be liable for the theft unless it was shown that he was grossly negligent in not providing a safer building. If the rats and mice should destroy the goods while they were in the common carrier's building, the same rule would apply; or if they were injured or destroyed in any other manner, he would not be responsible for the loss ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various

... every well-disposed mind occasionally to throw in a simple word of kindness. If I have, indeed, produced any such effect by my writings, it will be a soothing reflection to me, that for once, in the course of a rather negligent life, I have been useful; that for once, by the casual exercise of a pen which has been in general but too unprofitably employed, I have awakened a cord of sympathy between the land of my fathers and the dear ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... not method, it being mani mum artis celare artem.(109) His diction and language is easy and fluent, neat and fine, void of all affectation and bombast. His style is free from starch lusciousness and intricacy, every period has a kind of undesigned negligent elegance, which arrests the reader's attention, and makes what he says as apples of gold set in pictures of silver, so that, considering the time when he lived, it might be said, that he had carried the orator's prize from his cotemporaries in Scotland, and was not at that time ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... Wales, bearing for their heraldic distinction three human legs in armor, but so placed in relation to each other that always one leg is vertical and mounting guard on behalf of the other two, which, therefore, are enabled to sprawl aloft in the air—in fact, to be as absurdly negligent as they choose, relying upon their vigilant brother below, and upon the written legend or motto, STABIT QUOCUNQUE JECERIS (Stand it will upright, though you should fling it in any conceivable direction). What gave another ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... bureau scarf was blackened by the curling-iron; there were ink spots on the hemstitched sheets where she had written letters in bed, and something that would not come out was spilled on the table cover. It does not show that you are accustomed to nice things to be so negligent and careless; it shows you are not accustomed to them and do not know how to treat them; and it makes you a visitor the hostess is glad to get rid of, and never ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... munificence, and humanity can bestow, descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends and children, and, instead of giving support to freedom, turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negligent in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... in cotton," if he like; shall have "a better ship" for some solacement. This is the first emergence of Jenkins and his ear upon negligent mankind. He and it will marvellously ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the Castor since he lost his twin-brother, who was run down off Capo D'Anzo (he forgot, we suppose, to invoke Fortune "gratum quae regit Antium"), has become quite negligent of toilette, and incredulous about the powers of soap and sand. The bugs in only one of her beds would defy Bonnycastle! Fast enough, however, goes the Castor! Orestes, pursued by the furies, never rushed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... nearly as distinct, as the original. To this picture of a motionless rock, or island, the spars, sails, and high, pointed beak, however, formed especial exceptions. The yards hung, as seamen term it, a cockbill, or in such negligent and picturesque positions as an artist would most love to draw, while the drapery of the canvass was suspended in graceful and spotless festoons, as it had fallen by chance, or been cast carelessly ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... guest with increasing interest; for she was wholly unused to such artlessness in men. How could Father Hilarion have intrusted business of importance to an envoy so negligent? His confession, as he termed it, was an admission, neither more nor less, that he had no money of the country into which he was come. And further, how could the habit of lapsing in thought, or more ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... not prevent "contentious suites" from arising because of defective surveys when the lines were first run or because the restriction against resurveys did not resolve the boundary disputes. Conflicts continued if the surveyor had been negligent in marking clearly the boundaries, or if lines had become indistinct by the chops in trees filling out, by piles of stones being scattered, or by trees being removed. To prevent "the inconvenience of clandestine surveigh," the Assembly ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.

... addressing juries, he talked to them, I am told, ordinarily as he would converse with the same number of men in society on the merits of the case; and his gestures were those which might be used without serious remark in animated conversation. His postures were sometimes negligent enough; he had a contempt for rant, and hated show and pomp. His voice was pleasant, and of ample compass for an ordinary court-room, and he never dealt in vociferations; indeed, his style of argument to the jury, as well as to the bench, would have ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... some weeks Ann Veronica was to test her market value in the world. She went about in a negligent November London that had become very dark and foggy and greasy and forbidding indeed, and tried to find that modest but independent employment she had so rashly assumed. She went about, intent-looking and self-possessed, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... very negligent," the artist said, penitently, "and I have a thousand apologies to make. And now, what may I do ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... the Ulster politicians and the Tory women to poison and spoil, just as we left India to the traditions of the chattering army women and the repressive instincts of our mandarins. We were too lazy, we were too negligent. We passed our indolent days leaving everything to somebody else. Was this the incurable British, just as it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... Mr. Silk to guess that he had surprised his secret; and Mr. Silk, tortuous himself in all ways, could not begin to be on terms with a candid soul such as Ruth's, craving in all things to be open where it loves. Sir Oliver had supposed it a pretty lesson to put on a calm, negligent face, and command the parson, who dared not disobey, to perform the ceremony. Mr. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... care-free and negligent, with bitter unconcern, these dismal desperadoes flapped down the dough. If this recklessness were vicious of them, be it so; but their vice was like that weed which but grows on barren ground; enrich the ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... But because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours will drop back into a secondary place in the world. These two writers really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, the greedy usurer, the comfortable obstructive, confronted with this alternative, terrified at this idea of something or other called the Empire being "eclipsed," eager for the continuance of this undefined glory over their fellow-creatures ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... of the home, even setting themselves up in authority over the home, aye, even alienating the affections of the children, making the home of none effect. Where does the truth lie? Has the home been so negligent of its duty, or has the school forgotten that it is the creature of the home? Which is the usurper? That is an interesting question. We can not go into it in detail, but let me suggest that it has all come about not ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... bound by the "rule of the road at sea" to keep our course when meeting a ship running free. The penalty for doing ANYTHING under such circumstances is a severe one. First of all, you do not KNOW that the other ship's crew are asleep or negligent, even though they carry no lights; for, by a truly infernal parsimony, many vessels actually do not carry oil enough to keep their lamps burning all the voyage, and must therefore economize in this unspeakably dangerous fashion. And it may be that ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... Hammurabi, the wise king, established, A righteous law, and pious statute did he teach the land. Hammurabi, the protecting king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I made them a peaceful abiding place. I expounded all great difficulties, I made the light shine upon them. With the mighty weapons which Zamama and Ishtar intrusted to me, with the keen vision with which Ea endowed me, with the wisdom that Marduk gave me, I have uprooted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... have conceived within Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen Nature of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live Never any man knew so much, ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... married again,—a woman with no beauty, but much love and goodness,—a woman who asked little, blamed seldom, and then with all the tact and address which the utmost thoughtfulness could devise; and the passive, negligent husband became the attentive, devoted slave of her will. He was in her hands as clay in the hands of the potter; the least breath or suggestion of criticism from her lips, who criticized so little and so thoughtfully, weighed more with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... at all," she protested, still with her smiling, half-negligent air; "I've put it off years longer than most women would; now I'm ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... medicines till we find one which excels. Fresh air is of greatest importance. Patients should be strictly isolated in rooms by themselves, and it is wise to send away children who have not been exposed. Morally, parents are criminally negligent who allow their children with whooping cough to associate with healthy children. If the coughing fits are severe or there is fever, children should be kept in bed. Usually there is not much fever; perhaps an elevation of a degree ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... he saw that she was nervous, and set himself to reassure her. He assumed his dryest tone, his most negligent manner. When she came downstairs from Lancelot, and after watching the card-players, fingering a book or magazine, drifted to the open window and stood or leaned there, absorbing the glory of the night—Urquhart left her, and pulled at ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... her husband in a pencil scrawl. "A congratulation for you," she said to Quisante. He glanced carelessly and languidly at it, murmuring, "Read it to me, please," and she broke open the sealed envelope. Inside the writing was as negligent a scribble as on the outside, the writing of a man in bed, with a stump of pencil. Old Mr. Foster wrote better when he was up and abroad, so much better that Quisante's tired eyes had not marked the hand for his. "Read it out to me," said Quisante, his eyes now dwelling gratefully ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... Lord, and call not into judgment my manifold sins; and chiefly those whereof the world is not able to accuse me. In youth, mid age, and now after many battles, I find nothing in me but vanity and corruption. For, in quietness I am negligent; in trouble impatient, tending to desperation; and in the mean [middle] state I am so carried away with vain fantasies, that alas! O Lord, they withdraw me from the presence of thy Majesty. Pride and ambition assault me on the one part, ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... peculiar to himself; it partakes more of the style of the writers of the last century than of the style of the present age. It possesses great merit, but sometimes is negligent and loose. Mr. Gibbon mentioned it to the editor in warm terms of commendation; and was astonished when he heard how much of our author's life had been spent abroad. Speaking of our author's Lives of the Saints, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... after, a young man, who had for some time looked at us with a kind of negligent impertinence, advanced on tiptoe towards me; he had a set smile on his face, and his dress was so foppish, that I really believed he even wished to be stared at; and yet ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... mustered all that could bear arms, and drew them up within the walls, that they might not be perceived by the enemy, who was near; who, having scoured the country, and now returned heavy-laden with booty, lay encamped in the plains in a careless and negligent posture, so that, with the night ensuing upon debauch and drunkenness, silence prevailed through all the camp. When Camillus learned this from his scouts, he drew out the Ardeatians, and in the dead of the night, passing in silence ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the ungraded school and will keep many an active mind from getting into mischief. By questioning about the main facts the teacher can assure himself that the work has actually been done. This questioning should not be used only to catch the negligent; it should give pleasure to the pupils as a conversation with them about their pleasant occupation. It should be done very informally, often as two intelligent people would discuss a book. The questions should be broad in their scope and should not dwell ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... moment—that, at all events, was certain. He and no one else must take the news to Gino. It was easy to talk of Harriet's crime—easy also to blame the negligent Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at home. Every one had contributed—even Miss Abbott and Irma. If one chose, one might consider the catastrophe composite or the work of fate. But Philip did not so choose. It was his own fault, due to acknowledged weakness in his own character. Therefore he, and ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... the emperor Vespasian sent Iulius Agricola to [Sidenote: Iulius Agricola lieutenant.] succeed in the gouernement of Britaine, who comming ouer about the midst of summer, found the men of warre thorough want of a lieutenant negligent inough, so those that looking for no trouble, thought [Sidenote: Cor. Tacit in uit. Agr.] themselues out of all danger, where the enimies neuerthelesse watched [Sidenote: The first yeere of Agricola his gouernment.] vpon the next occasion to worke some displeasure, and were readie ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... and the painter to put any shadow in her face at his peril'. The next time the Raja came, the Emperor took the opportunity of consulting him upon a subject that had given him a good deal of anxiety for many months, the dismissal of one of his personal servants who had become negligent and disrespectful. He first took care that no one should be within hearing, and then whispered in the artist's ear that he wished to dismiss this man. The Raja said carelessly, as he looked from the imperial head to the canvas, 'Why does your majesty ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... distributed his wealth, consistently refusing to accumulate money for the benefit of himself or his family. But his independent spirit rendered him an unpleasant monitor for princes who were either negligent of their duty or sensitive of criticism, and even Taoukwang appears to have dreaded, in anticipation, the impartial and fearless criticism of the minister whom he restored to favor. Sung was employed in two of the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... foresee things to come, but that men's conjectures were a sort of lottery, and that out of many things which they said should come to pass, some actually did, unawares to them who spake it, who stumbled upon it, through their oft speaking." Thou providedst then a friend for me, no negligent consulter of the astrologers; nor yet well skilled in those arts, but (as I said) a curious consulter with them, and yet knowing something, which he said he had heard of his father, which how far it went to overthrow the estimation of that ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... negligently suffered the first letter of the word Oculo to have dropped from the form, when he happened to touch a line with his finger, which did not stand straight! He published another letter to do away the imputation of Ecchellensis; but thirty years afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished; the wits were ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... but clumsily through amateurishness—then the construction is bad. This calamity does not often occur in fine novels, but in really good work another calamity does occur with far too much frequency—namely, the tantalising of the reader at a critical point by a purposeless, wanton, or negligent shifting of the interest from the major to the minor theme. A sad example of this infantile trick is to be found in the thirty-first chapter of Rhoda Fleming, wherein, well knowing that the reader is tingling for the interview ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... the dead, if not the living. The pose of the head was unaltered, the chin upon the chest, the mouth closed in death as naturally as in sleep. No wonder his wife had been deceived. And yet there was something unfamiliar, something negligent and noble, and all unlike the living man; so that Rachel could already marvel that she had not at once detected this dignity and this distinction, only too foreign to her husband as she had learnt to know him best, but unattainable in the noblest save by death. And her eyes had risen ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton; yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... that in official correspondence, the public boards, through their proper officers, would be very precise in assigning to every person his proper title, in the address of a letter. Yet nothing can be more negligent and capricious than the way in which this is done. I have held an appointment in the public service, which is generally considered to carry with it the title of "Esquire," (but really whether it do or not, I am unable to tell), and have at different times had a good deal of official ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various

... is now drawing a cork from a bottle of porter, the froth of which you are quite sure from the manner in which the bottle is held, will chiefly fall upon the sheets between which you are destined to sleep,—unless some half drunken ruffian, regardless of rights of possession and negligent of etiquette, deposits himself there before the hour at which you may think ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... Nazarene and His troubles, Grod did not forget. The Father was not negligent nor careless. "There appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him." The night was not too dark for the angel to find Jesus, and the night of our troubles is never too thick and black for the angels to find us. The paths of "the Garden" may be grown up in weeds, the rough, ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... wondered at, perhaps, that Mrs. Francis should be so negligent of providing for her guests, as she may seem to be thus inattentive to her own interest; but this was not the case; for, having clapped a poll-tax on our heads at our arrival, and determined at what price to discharge our bodies from her house, the ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... brought before the eye, by a succession of rapid and animated touches, like the lights and shadows of a landscape. The light trochaic structure of the redondilla [13], as the Spanish ballad measure is called, rolling on its graceful, negligent asonante, [14] whose continued repetition seems by its monotonous melody to prolong the note of feeling originally struck, is admirably suited by its flexibility to the most varied and opposite expression; a circumstance ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... that all those fellows round were young soldiers who wouldn't at all understand bad behaviour. My arm was—orchestral, but still far from being real suffering IN me. Also I wanted to know what Challoner had got. They wouldn't understand my questions, and then I twisted round and saw from the negligent way his feet came out from under the engine that he must be dead. And dark red stains ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... a time of mourning, on account of the illness of the chief, the men were negligent of their persons, they did not cut their hair, or have merry dances, or carry spear and shield when they walked abroad. The wife of Pitsane was busy making a large hut, while we were in the town: she informed us that the men left house-building ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... school, perhaps, and so do your neighbors. But whose business is it to find a teacher, a house, etc.? 'John, I wish you would speak to William to ask Joseph to desire our friend Daniel to set about getting a good school. We want one very much; it is a shame to us to be so negligent.' This is the last we hear of the good school. What is everybody's business ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... said Sabine, "that we have agreed on this point, let us discuss our mutual interests, of which it seems that we have been a little negligent up ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... said as to the character of the colonists, especially the new supply which landed in the eight vessels with Ratcliffe and Archer. "Every man overvalueing his own strength would be a commander; every man underprizing another's value, denied to be commanded." They were negligent and improvident. "Every man sharked for his present bootie, but was altogether careless of succeeding penurie." To idleness and faction was joined treason. About thirty "unhallowed creatures," in the winter of 1610, some five months before the arrival of Captain Gates, seized ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her, as she always found her, surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, and comfort (after all, is it not a virtue in old maids that solitude rarely makes them negligent or disorderly?)—no dust on her polished furniture, none on her carpet, fresh flowers in the vase on her table, a bright fire in the grate. She herself sat primly and somewhat grimly-tidy in a cushioned rocking-chair, her ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 322.—/tardy form:/ appearance of tardiness. The construction in this expression is common in Shakespeare, as 'shady stealth' for 'stealing shadow,' in Sonnets, LXXVII, 7; 'negligent danger' for 'danger from negligence,' in Antony and Cleopatra, III, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... of his companion's gaze, and giving now attention himself to Mr. Caryll, he fell to appraising his genteel appearance, negligent of the insinuation in what Rotherby ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... should defend the common people from tyrants, oppressors, and extortioners: and maintain the Clergy, doing truly their office, in preaching, teaching, praying, and freely ministering the Sacraments of Holy Church. And if this Clergy be negligent in doing this office, this second part of the Church ought, by their office that they have taken of GOD, to constrain the Clergy in due wise, to do their office in the form that GOD hath ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... and reverent use of oaths their dignity is upheld and their obligation kept fast, so by the frequent and negligent application of them, by the prostituting them to every mean and toyish purpose, their respect will be quite lost, their strength will be loosed, they will ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... Negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually depopulating the earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions of nature for ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... for the decrease in the disease which has afflicted the cocoons for several years past. Wine and oil are at present articles of import solely,—the former because of a malady of the grape, the latter because of negligent cultivation of ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... manages this tremendous list of mortal and immortal characters with infinite coolness and dexterity. Nothing appears to embarrass him. He follows history in a negligent, sauntering way, passing over a hundred years or so, whenever it is convenient; and giving all his personages their turn of talking in orderly and impartial rotation. His speeches are wonderfully moral and long; even his worst characters have, for the most part, a temperate ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... seized with him on the rest, where they all expired. Matho, the other chief, who commanded in the city, saw plainly by this what he himself might expect; and for that reason was much more attentive to his own defence. Perceiving that Hannibal, as being confident of success, was very negligent in all his motions, he made a sally, attacked his quarters, killed many of his men, took several prisoners, among whom was Hannibal himself, and plundered his camp. Then taking Spendius from the cross, he put Hannibal in his place, after having made him suffer inexpressible torments; and sacrificed ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... and inquire as to its causes. It was Saturday night, eight days after the elopement. Mostyn had that day been irritated—that is, as much as a man in his plight could be irritated by any extraneous incident—by Delbridge's open criticism of the negligent condition of some of his accounts. The work of going over the books with his successor in rectifying really glaring mistakes detained him at the bank till late at night. It was twelve o'clock when he finally ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... and one of the surrounding streets, and through this he would gaze by the hour, wondering how the world was getting on without him. He suspected that Woods, the coachman, was not looking after the horses and harnesses as well as he should, that the newspaper carrier was getting negligent in his delivery of the papers, that the furnace man was wasting coal, or was not giving them enough heat. A score of little petty worries, which were nevertheless real enough to him. He knew how a house should be kept. He was always rigid in ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... leisure hours, (and with her prompt business habits, she secured some of these every day), were consecrated to visiting the numerous hospitals in and around Washington, and if she found the surgeons or assistant surgeons negligent and inattentive, they were promptly reported to the medical director. The condition of the hospitals in the city was, however, much better than that of the hospitals and convalescent camps over the river, in Virginia. A visit which ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... the paper with negligent curiosity. It was rumpled and dirty, far different from its appearance when in the box, and he did not recognize it. But as soon as he had smoothed it, and saw the handwriting, he ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... somewhat tardy, but none the less sincere. England hath e'er been friendly to the American, and you had been more fittingly received had our informants been less negligent." ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... Works made to instruct or to move; I'll even say they ought not to be found in Odes for Musick. Musick expresses Passions, Sentiments and Images: but what are the Concords that can be giv'n an Epigram? Dryden was sometimes negligent, but he ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton

... shoulder, with the small firm bosom of an amazon. By her erect and easy step, instinct with all the adorable grace of woman in her prime, one could divine that she was strong, muscular and healthy. A brunette, but very white of skin, she had a heavy helm of superb black hair, which she fastened in a negligent way, without any show of coquetry. And under her dark locks, her pure, intelligent brow, her delicate nose and gay eyes appeared full of intense life; whilst the somewhat heavier character of her lower features, her fleshy lips and full chin, bespoke her ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... rigorous the beauty, and the more hopeless the love, the more honorable the slavery. To go about "metamorphosed by a mistress," as Speed humorously expresses it,[23]—to maintain her supremacy in charms at the sword's point; to sigh; to walk with folded arms; to be negligent and melancholy, and to show a careless desolation, was the fashion of the day. The Surreys, the Sydneys, the Bayards, the Herberts of the time—all those who were the mirrors "in which the noble youth did dress themselves," were of this fantastic ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... native liberty and wildness without a school "education" than to have them subjected to mental and moral degradation by the vicious suggestions received in some of these places. Weak teachers have a false modesty in regard to such conditions and school boards are often thoughtless or negligent. ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... contained an array of speakers such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There was Burke—ignorant indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... not," says Xenophon, "difference in knowledge or opportunities of knowledge that makes some farmers rich and others poor; but that which makes some poor and some rich is that the former are negligent and lazy, the latter industrious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... engagement until just as the case was coming on. He used to intend to try his cases himself. But his heart, at the last moment, would fail him. He was as anxious about his clients' cases as if they were his own. He was exceedingly negligent about his pleadings and negligent in the matter of being prepared with the necessary formal proofs of facts which were really not doubtful but which were put in issue by the pleadings. When I was retained my first duty ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... way about," the American girl rattled on, her tone negligent, her eyes colored with a little warmer interest as her glance swept her foreign little cousin. "Frightfully hot, wasn't it? I'll clear out so you can pop into the tub. You'll just have time before luncheon," she assured ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... are manned by crews who have no familiarity with them. Many accidents of this kind had occurred in the British navy at manoeuvres, though it could not be shown that the vessel was defective, or that the crew was either untrained or negligent. These experiments led the admiralty to adopt a new system in 1904, designed to obviate the risk that vessels would be crippled at a critical moment by want of acquaintance on the part of the crew with their machinery. Under this system ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... will be long enough before such a chaunt as that is heard in any English cathedral again." Then Mrs Grantly got up and kissed her husband, but he, somewhat negligent of the kiss, went on with his speech. "But your father remembers nothing of it, and if there was a single human being who shed a tear in Barchester for that woman, I believe it was your father. And it was the same with mine. It came to that at last, that I could ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... picturesque in its decay than it ever could have been in its completeness. Its shattered columns, solitary mullions, and pendent fragments of tracery hoary with age, and in parts half concealed by the negligent profusion of ivy, entranced the mind by their suggestive and melancholy beauty; while the huge remnant of a massive tower seemed to plead with mute dignity against the violence which had rent and marred it, and against the encroaching vegetation, which was climbing higher and higher, ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson



Words linked to "Negligent" :   delinquent, negligence, hit-and-run, remiss, diligent, neglect, lax, slack, inattentive, neglectful, careless, derelict



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