Word.ws English Dictionary

neglected

Syllables: ne·glect·ed/nɪˈɡlɛktɪd/

neglected is the simple past and past participle of neglect.

Meaning of neglect

Verb

neglect (third-person singular simple present neglects, present participle neglecting, simple past and past participle neglected)

  1. (transitive) To fail to care for or attend to something.
    • to neglect duty or business; to neglect to pay debts
    Synonyms:
    let slide
  2. (transitive) To omit to notice; to forbear to treat with attention or respect; to slight.
    • to neglect strangers
    Synonyms:
    disregard
  3. (transitive) To fail to do or carry out something due to oversight or carelessness.
    • A friend of mine who runs an intellectual magazine was grousing about his movie critic, complaining that though the fellow had liked The Godfather (page 58), he had neglected to label it clearly as a masterpiece.1972 December 29, Richard Schickel, “Masterpieces underrated and overlooked”, in Life, volume 73, number 25, page 22
    Synonyms:
    fail, forget
  4. (transitive) To ignore for the sake of simplifying calculations without significantly affecting accuracy.
    • We can neglect this term, as it approaches zero in the limit anyway.

See all 7 meanings of neglect

Adjective

neglected (comparative more neglected, superlative most neglected)

  1. Suffering from neglect; uncared-for.
    • Under Shooter's leadership, suburban services from London Marylebone were rapidly improved and longer-distance travel to Birmingham Snow Hill was transformed on what had been a long-neglected second route from the capital to the West Midlands.2021 September 22, “National Rail Awards 2021: Adrian Shooter”, in RAIL, number 940, page 61
    Synonyms:
    ramshackle

Synonyms of neglected

Forms of neglected

comparativemore neglected
superlativemost neglected

Words formed from neglected

Phrases with neglected

Questions about neglected

What does neglected mean?
Neglected means suffering from neglect; uncared-for.
What is neglected the simple past and past participle of?
Neglected is the simple past and past participle of neglect.
What part of speech is neglected?
Neglected is an adjective.
How do you pronounce neglected?
Neglected is pronounced /nɪˈɡlɛktɪd/.

Words near neglected in the dictionary

  1. Negishi couplings
  2. neglect
  3. neglectability
  4. neglectable
  5. neglectably
  6. neglected
  7. neglected firm effect
  8. neglected firm effects
  9. neglectedly
  10. neglectedness
  11. neglectee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: neglected (page history and authors); neglect (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: en-us-neglected.ogg.

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