Word.ws English Dictionary

dereliction

Syllables: der·e·lic·tion/dɛɹ.ɪˈlɪk.ʃən/

dereliction noun: willful neglect of one's duty.

Noun

dereliction (countable and uncountable, plural derelictions)

  1. Willful neglect of one's duty.
    • The new soldier did not clean his cabin and was scolded for dereliction and disobedience.
    • What he did was a terrible dereliction of duty.
  2. The act of abandoning something, or the state of being abandoned.
    • To this we must contend with prayer , with actual dereliction and seposition of all our other affairs1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC
    • There is much sad evidence, too, of the spoliation and dereliction of vanished industry: tips, slag-heaps and derelict colliery-screens among which the ubiquitous, nomad mountain sheep graze unconcernedly.1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in Railway Magazine, page 449
  3. Land gained from the water by a change of water-line.

dereliction meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

dereliction in Tamil

கைவிடுகை, தவறல்

dereliction in Malayalam

ruin, dilapidation, disrepair
ജീർണ്ണാവസ്ഥ, ക്ഷയം, നാശം, പ്രക്ഷയം, അവരോഹം, ത്യജനം
delinquency, negligence, neglect
ഉപേക്ഷ, കർത്തവ്യവിലോപം, ധർമ്മച്ഛലം, കൃത്യനിർവണത്തിൽ വീഴ്ച വരുത്തൽ, വഴുതൽ, മിദ്ധം

dereliction in Kannada

ಪರಿತ್ಯಾಗ, ತೊರೆಯಲ್ಪಡುವುದು, ಕರ್ತವ್ಯ ಲೋಪ, ನ್ಯೂನತೆ, ಕುಂದು, ಚ್ಯುತಿ

Examples of dereliction in a sentence

  • […] there on the table were the uncleared remains of Thursday's lunch, plain evidence of someone's dereliction.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
  • And his final act—leaving the Watch to accompany Tormund and the Wildlings back into the woods North of the wall—no longer seems like a dereliction of duty.2019 May 19, Alex McLevy, “The final Game Of Thrones brings a pensive but simple meditation about stories (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club...
  • After years of unsympathetic commercial use and dereliction, nothing of note remained inside, which accordingly has been reconfigured with modern amenities such as underfloor heating.2021 December 15, Robin Leleux, “Awards honour the best restoration projects: The Network Rail Community Award: Saltash and Stow”, in RAIL...

Forms of dereliction

pluralderelictions

Origin of dereliction

From Latin dērelictiō (“neglect, abandonment”), from dērelinquō (“to neglect, abandon”), from dē- + re- + linquō (“to leave”).

Words that rhyme with dereliction

30 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dereliction

What does dereliction mean?
Dereliction means willful neglect of one's duty.
What is dereliction in Tamil?
Dereliction in Tamil is கைவிடுகை, தவறல். See Dereliction meaning in Tamil.
How do you use dereliction in a sentence?
[…] there on the table were the uncleared remains of Thursday's lunch, plain evidence of someone's dereliction.
What part of speech is dereliction?
Dereliction is a noun.
How do you pronounce dereliction?
Dereliction is pronounced /dɛɹ.ɪˈlɪk.ʃən/ (UK).
What is the plural of dereliction?
The plural of dereliction is derelictions.

Words near dereliction in the dictionary

  1. dereistic
  2. Derek
  3. derelict
  4. derelicted
  5. derelicting
  6. dereliction
  7. derelictions
  8. derelictly
  9. derelictness
  10. derelicts
  11. dereligionise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dereliction (page history and authors); dereliction (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dereliction (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dereliction (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dereliction.wav.

Cite this entry: “dereliction.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dereliction. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.