Carelessness

//ˈkɛɹləsnəs// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Lack of care; the state or quality of being careless. countable, uncountable

    "This accident was caused by carelessness."

  2. 2
    failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances wordnet
  3. 3
    the quality of not being careful or taking pains wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
inattentionnegligencenegligenceabandonabsentmindednessaccidia

Example

More examples

"The possibility that the explosion was caused by carelessness cannot be ruled out."

Etymology

From Middle English *carelesnes, *carlesnesse, from Old English carlēasnes (“freedom from care, security, carelessness”), equivalent to careless + -ness.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.