neglect

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin neglēctus, perfect passive participle of neglegō (“make light of, disregard, not to pick up”), a variant of neclegō, itself from nec (“not”) + legō (“pick up, select”). Recorded since 1529, as noun since 1588.

verb

1. (transitive) To fail to care for or attend to something.
   to neglect duty or business;  to neglect to pay debts
   One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains.[…]But out of sight is out of mind. And that, together with the inherent yuckiness of the subject, means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair. 2014-06-14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891
2. (transitive) To omit to notice; to forbear to treat with attention or respect; to slight.
   to neglect strangers
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. 1972-12-29, Richard Schickel, “Masterpieces underrated and overlooked”, in Life, volume 73, number 25, page 22
4. (transitive, mathematics) 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.
   This problem says to neglect air resistance.

noun

1. The act of neglecting.
2. The state of being neglected.
3. Habitual lack of care.