Word.ws English Dictionary

pretermit

/pɹiːtəˈmɪt/US/ˌpɹidəɹˈmɪt/

pretermit verb: to intentionally disregard (something), to ignore; to neglect or omit.

pretermit: grey metal stairs at the side of the building
Photo by Mika Wegelius on Unsplash

Verb

pretermit (third-person singular simple present pretermits, present participle pretermitting, simple past and past participle pretermitted)

  1. (transitive) To intentionally disregard (something), to ignore; to neglect or omit.
    • [F]or the public, for the redemption of the whole world, God hath (shall we say, pretermitted?) derelicted, forsaken, abandoned, his own, and only Son.a. 1632 (date written), John Donne, “Sermon LXXXII. Preached at a Marriage.”, in Henry Alford, editor, The Works of John Donne, D.D., […], volume IV, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], published...
    • The liberty of a subject lieth, therefore, only in those things which, in regulating their actions, the sovereign hath praetermitted (such as is the liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute...1651, Thomas Hobbes, chapter XXI, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC

Examples of pretermit in a sentence

  • The fees, or allowances, that are termly given to these deputies, receiver, and clerks, for recompence of these their pains, I do purposely pretermit; because they be not certain, but arbitrary.c. 1598, Francis Bacon, An Account of […] Compositions for Alienations:
  • [V]arious subjects for annotation have presented themselves which, though I have no direct need of them, I could not pretermit.1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XX, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons...

Forms of pretermit

third-person singular presentpretermits
present participlepretermitting
past participlepretermitted
pastpretermitted

Origin of pretermit

From Latin praetermitto.

Words formed from pretermit

Questions about pretermit

What does pretermit mean?
Pretermit means to intentionally disregard (something), to ignore; to neglect or omit.
How do you use pretermit in a sentence?
The fees, or allowances, that are termly given to these deputies, receiver, and clerks, for recompence of these their pains, I do purposely pretermit; because they be not certain, but arbitrary.
What part of speech is pretermit?
Pretermit is a verb.
How do you pronounce pretermit?
Pretermit is pronounced /pɹiːtəˈmɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of pretermit?
The past tense of pretermit is pretermitted.

Words near pretermit in the dictionary

  1. preterminated
  2. pretermination
  3. preterminations
  4. pretermission
  5. pretermissions
  6. pretermit
  7. pretermits
  8. pretermitted
  9. pretermitted child
  10. pretermitted children
  11. pretermitted heir

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pretermit (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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