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Negligent   /nˈɛglədʒənt/  /nˈɛglɪdʒənt/   Listen
Negligent

adjective
1.
Characterized by neglect and undue lack of concern.  "Negligent of detail" , "Negligent in his correspondence"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Negligent" Quotes from Famous Books



... Advantage; whereby they might arrive to the Crops and Harvests of Babylon, and those other fruitful Countries so much talk'd of. For I must confess, I never saw one Acre of Land manag'd as it ought to be in Carolina, since I knew it; and were they as negligent in their Husbandry in Europe, as they are in Carolina, their Land would produce nothing but Weeds ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... come to you and mar Your dwindling appetite for caviar, And so I told him! [He calls within. Sir, the critics sneer, And swear the thing is "crude and insincere"! "Too trivial"! or for an instant pause And doubly damn with negligent applause! Impute, in fine, the prowess of the Vicar Less to repentance than to too much liquor! Find Louis naught! de Gatinais inane! Gaston unvital, and George Erwyn vain, And Degge the futile fellow of Audaine! Nay, sir, no Epilogue avails to save— ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her, as she always found her, surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, and comfort (after all, is it not a virtue in old maids that solitude rarely makes them negligent or disorderly?)—no dust on her polished furniture, none on her carpet, fresh flowers in the vase on her table, a bright fire in the grate. She herself sat primly and somewhat grimly-tidy in a cushioned rocking-chair, her hands busied with some knitting. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... may seem too subtile a deduction of the Lawes of Nature, to be taken notice of by all men; whereof the most part are too busie in getting food, and the rest too negligent to understand; yet to leave all men unexcusable, they have been contracted into one easie sum, intelligible even to the meanest capacity; and that is, "Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe;" which ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... deputies to treat of surrendering their city; but when they had agreed or were upon the point of agreement, and the inhabitants being employed in preparing provisions to be sent to the camp were negligent in guarding the walls, the German and Gascon foot entered through the breach that had been made and plundered the town in a most barbarous manner, their cruelty being exasperated not only by their natural hatred to the name of the Italians, but by a spirit of ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... their retreat? Questions such as these demanded immediate answer. Ten years before the most dashing scouts would have clattered off to the front and would have required a day, perhaps more, to complete the necessary reconnaissance. But though of all nations, except of course the utterly negligent United States, Great Britain had least developed her aviation corps, there were attached to General French's headquarters enough airmen to meet this need. In a few minutes after the disquieting news arrived the beat of the propellers rose above the din of the battlefield ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... had been set for me to bring together into an intelligible and perfectly rounded whole, and wondering what I would succeed in making of it all. For a while I was aware of a strange lack of confidence in myself, of a feeling of uncertainty. Had I been negligent in not arresting both Maillot and Burke? It seemed the simplest and most direct method of proceeding; it would be no difficult matter to fasten the crime on one or the other, or both of them; why should I go behind the few plain details which lay so ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... rarely to the Emperor, except on his regular visit each Wednesday and Saturday. He was very candid with the Emperor, insisted positively that his directions should be obeyed to the letter, and made full use of the right accorded to physicians to scold their negligent patient. The Emperor was especially fond of him, and always detained him, seeming to find much pleasure ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... be cast, however, I was not negligent in seeking such information as promised to be useful; and I therefore frequented, at my leisure hours, such vessels as dropt into Torbay. On attempting to get on board one of these, which I did at midnight, I missed my footing, and fell into the sea. The floating away of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... require. But though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave. The fund for replacing or repairing, if I may say so, the wear and tear of the slave, is commonly managed by a negligent master ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... certainly and at such relatively small cost. The time is not far distant when those states and municipalities which have not adopted a comprehensive plan for dealing with tuberculosis will be regarded as almost criminally negligent in their administration of sanitary affairs and inexcusably blind to their own ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... or children above sixteene yeares old, and of suffitient understanding, shall curse or smite their naturall father or mother, hee or they shall bee put to death; unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoke them by extreme and cruell correction that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death, maiming.—Exo., xxi., 17. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... easily be confounded with that which I have substituted for it, by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent inspection, [W: Unmanly reech'd] Dr. Warburton has, perhaps, rightly ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... years of age, of active habits and good constitution, living in the neighbourhood of London, had complained for about five weeks of a slight headache. He was feverish, inattentive to his occupation, and negligent of his family. He had been cupped, and taken some purgative medicine, when he was visited by Dr. Arnould, of Camberwell. By that gentleman's advice, he was sent to a private asylum, where he remained about two years. His delusions very gradually subsided, and he was afterwards restored to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... be had to this, since, as you say, the affair is weighty. The government or the individual that is negligent of reputation, cannot expect long to retain the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... to me, it is no proper time, when the storm comes upon us, to have the necessary implements to seek, or to be out of repair, or to want them on board; for the gods are never favourable to those who are negligent or lazy; and it is their goodness that they do not destroy us ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... inciting, arousing, impelling, reproving and beseeching with all perseverance, those having knowledge of the faith. We are enjoined (2 Tim 4, 2) to be urgent, to "reprove, rebuke and exhort," that Christians may not grow weary, indolent and negligent, as too often they do, knowing already what is required of them. But prophecy must furnish the store of information for the teachers and exhorters. Scripture expositors must supply these latter. Prophesying, then, is the source of all ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... trials the benefits of a great lesson. But," he added hurriedly, seeing her stand still silent but erect before him, "I see that you do!" He paused, coughed slightly, cast a glance at the veranda,—where Cissy now for the first time observed a man standing in an obviously assumed attitude of negligent abstraction,—moved towards the back room, and in a lower voice said, "A word with ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... obedience to the faintest whisper of His will will often hinder some blessing which He meant for us until after a while we may get so dull and negligent that He will not be able to trust us with His whispers and we shall thus stumble on in the darkness and miss ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... dine, and often he dined alone. Young Jacob was in great demand all over town, and his father knew that he ought to go out and amuse himself. And the young man, although he was kind and loving, and never negligent in any office of respect or affection, had that strong youth in him which makes it impossible to sit every day of the week opposite an old man whose world had slipped by him, who knew nothing of youth except to love it and ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner

... heaven of blue inwoven with a heaven of green." One tall corn captain becomes to his mind the symbol of the poet-soul sublime, who takes from all that he may give to all. The picture of the thriftless and negligent Southern farmer, "a gamester's cat'spaw and a banker's slave," shows Lanier's keen insight into Southern conditions, which he had, while living in Macon, studied with much care and which he now lifted into the realm of poetry. The red hills of Georgia, deserted and barren, are presented ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions; nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation; nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius

... slight, vague repercussion upon literature. The attitude of the culture of London towards it is of course merely humiliating to any Englishman who has made an effort to cure himself of insularity. It is one more proof that the negligent disdain of Continental artists for English artistic opinion is fairly well founded. The mild tragedy of the thing is that London is infinitely too self-complacent even to suspect that it is London and ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... copies from the antique in alabaster and marble, china vases, lofty mirrors, crimson hangings of the richest silk, gilded carvings, luxurious couches, glistening cabinets inlaid with precious woods; costly toys of every sort in negligent abundance. The only guests besides Jonas were the doctor, the resident Director, and two other gentlemen, whom Montague presented ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... into Mortimer Lightwood's mind that a change of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest and most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the last half-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something new and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passed into his mind, and passed out again; but he ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... robbers on the highways; the manner of doing which is left to the discretion of the justices of the peace and the constable[d], the hundred being however answerable for all robberies committed therein, by day light, for having kept negligent guard. Watch is properly applicable to the night only, (being called among our Teutonic ancestors wacht or wacta[e]) and it begins at the time when ward ends, and ends when that begins; for, by the statute of Winchester, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... is exceedingly negligent in regard to dates. We learn from the history of America, II. 370, that the present occurrences took ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... he shall see the people negligent to come to the holy Communion, instead of the former, he shall use this Exhortation, Dearly ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown

... when M. Leopold Delisle made public the result of a most patient and most subtle investigation of the whole fraud, and a selection of the best of the plunder was got back for France. Sad to say, the municipalities which had been most negligent in keeping their MSS. refused to contribute to the recovery of them. They are still at Paris, to the advantage of students, but to the ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James

... it. Oh, I don't mean he thinks I'm lying or anything like that. He's too sharp for that. But he is convinced that we're negligent, that we're a bunch of barbarians who ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett

... Confederate. My own experience in a Federal prison at the close of the war, while very disagreeable, was much better than those poor fellows were getting with us. But when we take into consideration the superior resources of the United States, they were, to say the least, equally negligent and resentful to their helpless enemies. Point Lookout Federal prison will be treated on in ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... of prefaces arises whenever an author would disguise his solicitude for his work, by appearing negligent, and even undesirous of its success. A writer will rarely conclude such a preface without betraying himself. I think that even Dr. Johnson forgot his sound dialectic in the admirable Preface to his Dictionary. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... God as it. Let a man love, though he has opportunity to do nothing, it is accepted of the God of heaven. But where there is no love, let a man do what he will, it is not at all regarded (I Cor 13:1-3). Now to be careless and negligent, and that from a supposed understanding of the grace of Christ in the exercise of his advocateship for us in heaven, is as clear sign as can be, that in thy heart there is no love to Christ, and that consequently thou art just a nothing, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... incongruous or out of keeping. On the other hand if the garden be neglected and overgrown with weeds, or if every thing in its arrangement indicate a want of taste, and a disregard of neatness and order, we feel no astonishment whatever in discovering that the proprietor is as negligent of his mind and person as of his ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... the genius of Mr. Wordsworth we cannot but think that the minuteness of his descriptions often diminishes their effect. He has accustomed himself to gaze on nature with the eye of a lover, to dwell on every feature, and to mark every change of aspect. Those beauties which strike the most negligent observer, and those which only a close attention discovers, are equally familiar to him and are equally prominent in his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that half is often more than the whole, is eminently applicable to description. The policy of the Dutch, who cut down most ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cool, indifferent, regardless, unconcerned, calm, dispassionate, negligent, stolid, uninterested, careless, frigid, phlegmatic, stony, unmindful, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... Frontinus, the emperor Vespasian sent Iulius Agricola to [Sidenote: Iulius Agricola lieutenant.] succeed in the gouernement of Britaine, who comming ouer about the midst of summer, found the men of warre thorough want of a lieutenant negligent inough, so those that looking for no trouble, thought [Sidenote: Cor. Tacit in uit. Agr.] themselues out of all danger, where the enimies neuerthelesse watched [Sidenote: The first yeere of Agricola his gouernment.] vpon the next occasion to worke some displeasure, and were readie on ech hand ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... hyperbole, [12]—these, and a thousand similar scenes, are brought before the eye, by a succession of rapid and animated touches, like the lights and shadows of a landscape. The light trochaic structure of the redondilla [13], as the Spanish ballad measure is called, rolling on its graceful, negligent asonante, [14] whose continued repetition seems by its monotonous melody to prolong the note of feeling originally struck, is admirably suited by its flexibility to the most varied and opposite expression; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... serious," remarked his father, "for I found this morning that I had left my bunch of keys on my desk. I don't see how I came to be so negligent." ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... The work of rebuilding the temple, which had been begun when Jerubbabel and his colony came to Jerusalem, had been stopped by the opposition which they met. Along with this laxity of effort to build the temple the Jews were busy building houses for themselves (1:4) and had become very negligent of all duty. They had begun to despair of seeing their people and the beloved city and temple restored to the glory pictured by the prophets and were rapidly becoming reconciled to the situation. These two prophets succeeded in arousing interest and confidence ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... some on reasoning. The ground for this general conviction is the notorious fact that with children every one of these acts, is performed in a faulty and superficial manner. The observations of children are very careless and unreliable. Even adults are extremely negligent and inaccurate in their observations of natural objects, persons, and phenomena. But the mental powers brought to bear in observation are simple and elementary. The exercise of higher mental powers, such as analysis, comparison, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... bosom swung. Alack! For that we seem indeed To have slipped the world's great leaping-time, and come Upon thy pinched and dozing days: these weeds, These corporal leavings, thou not cast'st us new, Fresh from thy craftship, like the lilies' coats, But foist'st us off With hasty tarnished piecings negligent, Snippets and waste From old ancestral wearings, That have seen sorrier usage; remainder-flesh After our father's surfeits; nay with chinks, Some of us, that if speech may have free leave Our souls go out at elbows. We are sad With more than our sires' heaviness, and with ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... to establish and maintain a high standard of efficiency amongst all ranks. The G.O.C. set himself to put his men right and succeeded. He has a wonderfully comprehensive grip over every branch of activity, and woe betide the officer or man who is indifferent to or negligent of the duties entrusted to him. Any proposition calculated to benefit the men has always been favourably considered, and he has frequently been an interested spectator of various games that have been played just behind the lines. As a result there is little if any disaffection among the men ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... sufficiently show the nature of Mr. Kirkup's labors, and how far he was really eager in the pursuit of this object, both during the time when I was most deeply engaged in it, and also for 'some months' after I had quitted Florence. But to resume: Mr. Kirkup, however ignorant, or culpably negligent, or a little of both, he might previously have been on the subject, yet when I brought it before him, he at once admitted its importance, and made a liberal offer of money, if any should be required, to carry out the experiment. Thus encouraged by Mr. Wilde and by Mr. Kirkup, I sought ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... neglect the act, of leaving things undone. The adjectives negligent and neglectful should, ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... viceroy was equally negligent in all the details of his administration, the Portuguese colony ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... give me time and I will prove a dutiful daughter." She was going to say more when a servant entered with a note, which from its negligent appearance was evidently written in much haste. It was from Mrs. Montague Arnold, and contained only a few hurried sentences, so unintelligible that Marguerite did not ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... explosives without a licence perhaps." This was meant for a contemptuous jeer, though the expression of the thin, sickly face remained unchanged, and the utterance was negligent. "I don't think there's one of them anxious to make that arrest. I don't think they could get one of them to apply for a warrant. I mean one of the best. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... also saw progress on the subject of compensation for industrial accidents. As far back as 1884 Germany had enacted a law which put the blame for all accidents on the employers, except when the victim was wilfully negligent; in 1897 England had passed the British Workmen's Compensation Act which virtually made the employer the insurer of his workmen against all accidents. The theory underlying these laws was that accidents were like wear and tear and ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... from him, and Larry was a dead shot. But this time he made a scandalous miss, for the shot knocked a little white dust from the stone wall a full yard at one side; and the fellow never shifted his negligent posture or qualified his ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... cabin in which no wealth was stored. In the place of jewels and bar-gold there was something else. It seemed McKee and Talbott had not been as negligent of their hoard as it had ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis

... to discourse of good Patrons, and distinguish such as have done their Duty to those who have depended upon them, and were not able to act without their Favour. Worthy Patrons are like Plato's Guardian Angels, who are always doing good to their Wards; but negligent Patrons are like Epicurus's Gods, that lie lolling on the Clouds, and instead of Blessings pour down Storms and Tempests on the Heads of those that are ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the pear tree. Miss Currie watched the old man place the ladder against the tree, under the combined directions of her father and the unconcerned occupant of the balloon-car, and then she thought the time was ripe for her to stroll up in a negligent manner. ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various

... for his plain dealing. We cannot wonder, that under such teachers, 'Christians learned to be proud one of another, to be covetous, to be treacherous, and false, to be cowardly in God's matters, to be remiss and negligent in christian duties, one of another.' p. 525. A scandal was thus brought upon religion. 'Upon this I write with a sigh; for never more than now. There is no place where the professors of religion are, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... this; he did not consider that negligence and inhumanity are widely different. The lady-patronesses had, perhaps, been rather negligent in contenting themselves with seeing the charity-children show well in procession to Church, and they had not sufficiently inquired into the conduct of the schoolmistress; but, as soon as the facts were properly stated, the ladies were eager to exert ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... addition to the crowding of passengers in some instances was this extremely hazardous feat of lowering boats swung inboard from a tilted height, heavily weighted by human beings, with the ship still under way. It cannot be said that it was negligent to attempt this, because, obviously, all the passengers could not be accommodated in ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... as though she had been, according to her own opinion, above rather than beneath them. The lover-like pretensions of Shade Buckheath, a man dangerous, remorseless, as careless of the rights of others as any tiger in the jungle, she regarded with negligent composure. But Gray Stoddard—ah, there her treacherous heart gave way, and trembled in terror. The air of perfect equality he maintained between them, his attitude of intimacy, flattering, almost affectionate, this it was which she felt she must ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... serve as prosecutors. The department is seeking systematically to strengthen the law enforcement agencies week by week and month by month, not by dramatic displays but by steady pressure; by removal of negligent officials and by encouragement and assistance to the vigilant. During the course of these efforts it has been revealed that in some districts causes contributing to the congestion of criminal dockets, and to delays and inefficiency in prosecutions, have been lack of sufficient ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... standing near him, and being quite accustomed to guide himself by a plan, went straight through the rooms, which were not a few, and by a long corridor from the hall of the Muses, to the lodging of the negligent official. An unclosed door led him into a dark ante-chamber followed by another room, and finally into a large, well-furnished apartment. All these door-ways, into what seemed to be at once the dining and sitting-room of the steward, were bereft of doors, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... new suit to show; Yet went to court!—the devil would have it so. But, as the fool that, in reforming days, Would go to mass in jest (as story says) Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd, Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God; So was I punish'd, as if full as proud, As prone to ill, as negligent of good. 20 As deep in debt, without a thought to pay, As vain, as idle, and as false as they Who live at court, for going once that way! Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came A thing which Adam had been posed to name; Noah had refused it lodging in his ark, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... inference may be drawn fairly, and without harshness or exaggeration, that the "changed man" had been in times past negligent of some important branches of moral duty; vehement, hasty, and impetuous in his general proceedings; and not considering in his pursuits their fitness for his station and place; in a word, guilty of moral delinquencies immediately opposed ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... feel the hand of the law. Hereby many persons seem to believe (as apparently does one bishop) that, as a part of English liberty, every one has a right to be drunk. While we complain that authorities are negligent and connive at vice, after accepting and assuming the duty to prevent it; the sellers of the drink are open to a severer charge. A man too poor to keep a servant is glad to get a wife to serve him. She is to him housemaid and cook and nurse of his children. For all these ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... was blackened by the curling-iron; there were ink spots on the hemstitched sheets where she had written letters in bed, and something that would not come out was spilled on the table cover. It does not show that you are accustomed to nice things to be so negligent and careless; it shows you are not accustomed to them and do not know how to treat them; and it makes you a visitor the hostess is glad to get rid of, and never ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... think, sir, of those two medieval institutions which we have now lost—I suppose irrevocably—the whipping boy and the court jester. What a pity that they cannot be revived! The whipping boy, a device to put princes on their honor to be neither negligent nor wanton in the fulfilment of their duties; and the jester to break us of our too self-conscious airs and exhibit to us our follies. See what we have done instead! When our growing sense of priggish decorum and our dishonest ceremoniousness of speech made the jester a figure ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... lines, whence had issued the raiding party that had had such luck as to defeat a small and very much surprised body of Americans. Perhaps it is not to their credit to say they were surprised, but the truth must be told. Some one was negligent, and failed to give ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates

... before quitting the harbour, is to turn all hands over to their proper ship, and then to scrape, and scrub, and wash the hulk as effectually as possible, preparatory to her being inspected by the dockyard. This duty is too frequently executed in a negligent manner; and really it is not much to be wondered at, for the hulks are such abominable ugly-looking monsters, that one can take no pride or pleasure in treating them with common decency. The commanding-officer, therefore, should be particularly ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... thou hast surely found My long delay most irksome. More dispatch Had pleased thee more, for such was thy command. To whom the warlike Hector thus replied. No man, judicious, and in feat of arms 635 Intelligent, would pour contempt on thee (For thou art valiant) wert thou not remiss And wilful negligent; and when I hear The very men who labor in thy cause Reviling thee, I make thy shame my own. 640 But let us on. All such complaints shall cease Hereafter, and thy faults be touch'd no more, Let Jove but once afford us riddance clear Of ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... sheet, and had begun to revise his story, making corrections with a very black pencil and in a very large hand, when there sauntered in from the general editorial room a pale, slight young man of twenty-five. The newcomer had a reckless air, a humorous twist to the left corner of his mouth, and a negligent smartness in his dress which plainly had its origin elsewhere than ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... having the least service to perform, or the least annoyance to undergo. And you talk to me of duties to be performed! In sooth, my pretty idler, what are your own proper duties, unless to write to the handsome Raoul? And even that you don't do; so that it looks to me as if you likewise were rather negligent ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to know that others are happy,—it consoles me." Again her agony wrung from her these bitter words,—the bitterest she ever uttered,—words of transient madness, yet most characteristic:—"Oh God! help me, is all my cry. Yet I have little faith in the Paternal love I need, so ruthless or so negligent seems the government of this earth. I feel calm, yet sternly, towards Fate. This last plot against me has been so cruelly, cunningly wrought, that I shall never acquiesce. I submit, because useless resistance is degrading, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... or two when they meet, but this one did not. As he approached Stratton at a rapid speed there was a brief, involuntary movement as if he meant to pull up and then changed his mind. The next moment he had whirled past with a careless, negligent gesture of one hand and a keen, penetrating, questioning stare from a pair ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... gunner, ventured to suggest that a gun that had been through three engagements and had been fired so frequently must necessarily show some signs of wear. The gunner glanced at me, and I shall never forget that look. With his eyes on mine, he touched a lever in negligent fashion, whereon silently the great breech slipped away with a hiss and whistle of air, and with his gaze always fixed he suggested I might ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... without want. The nomadic portion is subdivided, according to the districts in which they wander, into those of the mountains and those of the steppes. Almost their sole occupation is the rearing of cattle; and they attend to that in a very negligent manner, not collecting a sufficient store of winter fodder for all their herds, but allowing part of them to perish. The Bashkirs are usually very poor, and in winter live partly on a kind of gruel called yuryu, and badly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... expatriated Patriot, or Transatlantic Adventurer, urging the extinction of Close Boroughs, or planning a code of laws for some "lone island in the watery waste," his walk almost amounting to a run, his tongue keeping pace with it in shrill, cluttering accents, negligent of his person, his dress, and his manner, intent only on his grand theme of UTILITY—or pausing, perhaps, for want of breath and with lack-lustre eye to point out to the stranger a stone in the wall at the end of his garden (overarched by two beautiful cotton-trees) Inscribed ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... followers were not the mass of the nation, who, left to themselves, would not have so acted, but the few who stirred up the many. But, though He does not lay the guilt at the doors of all, yet the punishment falls on all, and, when the city is burned, the houses of the negligent and of the slayers are equally consumed; for simple refusal of the message and slaying the messengers were but the positive and superlative degrees of the same crime—rebellion against the king, whose invitation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... generous to trifle on such a point:—and for his character, you wrong him there, too. No, Lydia, he is too proud, too noble to be jealous; if he is captious, 'tis without dissembling; if fretful, without rudeness. Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the little duties expected from a lover—but being unhackneyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere; and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every thought and emotion of ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... married again,—a woman with no beauty, but much love and goodness,—a woman who asked little, blamed seldom, and then with all the tact and address which the utmost thoughtfulness could devise; and the passive, negligent husband became the attentive, devoted slave of her will. He was in her hands as clay in the hands of the potter; the least breath or suggestion of criticism from her lips, who criticized so little and so thoughtfully, weighed more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... agencies are marriage and lack of money; either of these breaks the lot of literary and refined inaction at once and forever. The first of these, as we have seen, Cowper had escaped; his reserved and negligent reveries were still free, at least from the invasion of affection. To this invasion, indeed, there is commonly requisite the acquiescence or connivance of mortality; but all men are born—not free and equal, as the Americans maintain, but, in the Old World at least—basely subjected ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... would. Then the same duty devolves upon you, as a member of the Sunday school. The school lends you books, and expects you to take good care of them, and return them early. This is no trifling duty. If you have a right to be negligent, every other scholar must have the same right, and the Library would be speedily ruined. Thus your negligence greatly wrongs others. Therefore, children, take care of ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston

... as they sat on the bank of a fresh rivulet, the poet Horace, Varius, Gallus, and Lycoris. A little apart, leaning against the trunk of a dark holm-oak, Virgil was gazing pensively at the grove. Of lofty stature, though spare, he still preserved that swarthy complexion, that rustic air, that negligent bearing, and unpolished appearance which during his lifetime concealed his genius. I saluted him piously and remained for a long ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... distinguish the words, if she is ill, remember, if she is ill—and then Edmund answer'd, You may depend on it, my Lord,—as I have a soul to be saved:—does your Lordship suppose I would be so negligent? ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... not to telegraph," he said, "and I am afraid my wife will think me negligent: she often has to reproach me for my sins of omission, and this time I know ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... said Gorenflot, in a severe voice, "listen to what my friend M. Briquet is about to tell you. It seems that you are negligent, and I hear of grave faults in your last soup, and a fatal mistake in the cooking of your ears. Take care, brother, take care; a single step in a wrong direction ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... Negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually depopulating the earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... will be a ridiculous mixture of I know not what; sober and covetous, proud and devout, temperate and vain, regular in our forms of devotion and irregular in all our passions, circumspect in little modes of behaviour and careless and negligent of tempers the most essential to piety. And thus it will necessarily be with us till we lay the axe to the root of the tree, till we deny and renounce the whole corruption of our nature, and resign ourselves up entirely to the Spirit of God, to think and speak and ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... but I cannot think that his Stratagem is natural or easy, by which he brings that Destruction upon the Heads of his Enemies, which was to have fallen upon himself. It was possible, but not very probable; because methinks, their Commission was kept in a very negligent Manner, to be thus got from them without their knowing it. Their Punishment was just, because they had devoted themselves to the Service of the Usurper in whatever he should command, ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous

... of parliament in February, several stormy debates took place on the American war. In these debates the opposition not only blamed the ministry for the negligent manner in which the maritime part of the conflict had been conducted, but also with being the aggressors, and with having provoked an unnecessary and fatal contest. In order, therefore, to clear themselves from all imputations, Lord Castlereagh, on the 18th of February, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... than the finest view in the domain assigned to him by the gratitude of his country. This consisted of about a hundred Highlanders, in complete dress and arms; at sight of whom the Chieftain apologised to Waverley in a sort of negligent manner. 'He had forgot,' he said, 'that he had ordered a few of his clan out, for the purpose of seeing that they were in a fit condition to protect the country, and prevent such accidents as, he was sorry to learn, had befallen the Baron of Bradwardine. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... long subject to attacks of disease; and the warning indications which constantly arose of some deep-seated organic injuries in his pulmonary system ought to have put him on his guard for some years before his death. Of all men, however, it is remarkable that Schiller was the most criminally negligent of his health; remarkable, we say, because for a period of four years Schiller had applied himself seriously to the study of medicine. The strong coffee, and the wine, which he drank, may not have been so injurious as his biographers suppose; but his habit of sitting up through the ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... same good-natured soldier who had taken them before Colonel Schmidt, and he paid little attention to them. Perhaps he thought that there was no need to watch them closely; perhaps he was simply negligent. But, whatever the reason, Paul was able to discover the composition of the force upon which they had stumbled with a good deal of exactness. He learned to what regiment their escort belonged, and he also saw numbers on helmets and other identifying marks that supplied him with much other information. ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske

... step-son will find himself too late for an interview to-night; so I will quietly await her here. What a dreamy place it is, though; I did not think that she possessed so much of the philosophy of life; but the strangeness reminds me that I have been rather too negligent of late. No matter, she will only be the more ready to welcome me; for, with all her romance and journalizing, the woman loves me: I was sure of that, even while pushing the hard bargain with her cavalier. Faith," he continued, rubbing his velvety palms together, and leaning ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... drawings of Flaxman's Iliad and Odysse and Hesiod. I wish you could have seen them the other day, acting Giant Despair and Mrs. Diffidence. They were sitting on chairs opposite the doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant attitude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable voices. "Well, what had we better do with them?" "Oh, beat them pretty well, every day!" The air of the two figures, and their tones, in comparison ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... life, and sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones.... In the very grand and tremendous drama of Cain,' etc.... 'And Lord Byron has done all this,' Scott adds, 'while managing his pen with the careless and negligent ease of a man of quality.'"—Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold, 1881, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... all parents to be diligent In bringing up their children; aye, to be circumspect. Lest they fall to evil, be not negligent But chastise them before they ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... education will not lead to either of these."[61] This feeling of a group is expressed in the following statement in a report to the Baltimore Council by a committee in 1913: "No fault is found with the Negroes' ambitions," said the report, "but the Committee feels that Baltimoreans will be criminally negligent as to their future happiness, if they suffer the Negroes' ambitions to go unchecked."[62] Mr. Thomas Dixon, Junior, deplores the fact that Washington was training the Negroes to be "masters of men," stating that ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... Banquo as strong and noble, or blamelessly weak, or criminally negligent? Why? Compare Banquo and Macduff in order to bring out the chief characteristics ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely

... musician in his story, "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven," written many years after. "I only remember, that I heard a symphony of Beethoven one evening. After that I fell sick with a fever, and when I recovered, I was a musician." He grew lazy and negligent in school, having only his tragedy at heart, but the music of Beethoven induced him to devote himself passionately to the art. Indeed while listening to the Egmont music, it so affected him that he would not for all the world, "launch" his tragedy ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl

... judgment my manifold sins; and chiefly those whereof the world is not able to accuse me. In youth, mid age, and now after many battles, I find nothing in me but vanity and corruption. For, in quietness I am negligent; in trouble impatient, tending to desperation; and in the mean [middle] state I am so carried away with vain fantasies, that alas! O Lord, they withdraw me from the presence of thy Majesty. Pride and ambition assault me on the ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes

... the unity of the subject or the unity in tone in characters; hence, there was nothing calculated or premeditated—everything was spontaneous. No preparation of plan did she ever think of—a mode of procedure which naturally resulted in a negligent style and caused the composition to drag. Her inspiration seemed to go so far, then she resorted to her imagination, to the chimerical, forcing events and characters. "There are many defects in the style—such as the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... interesting. He was intelligent, sagacious, and well-informed; yet no English monarch was ever more cordially despised. The governing principle of his life was a love of ease and pleasure, which made him negligent of his duties; and there never yet lived a man, however exalted his sphere, who had not imperative duties to perform, without the performance of which his life was a failure and a reproach. So it was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... in the same manner. It has been remarked, that men who have begun by forming suppositions, are inclined to adapt and to compress their consequent observations to the measure of their theories; they have been negligent in collecting facts, and have not condescended to try experiments. This disposition of mind, during a long period of time, retarded improvement, and knowledge was confined to a few peremptory maxims and exclusive principles. The necessity of collecting facts, and of trying experiments, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... for saddle work," he remarked in his negligent tones; "besides, I want to make trial of this new-fashioned carriage. I won it from my lord of Gratton three days since; and he boasts that it has been copied from one in the possession of the King of France, who is said to be a monarch ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... comes to such a soil as this. But he feeds not so many mouths, though he tills more acres. The plants he raises have not so exquisite a form, the vegetables so fine a flavor. His cultivation becomes more negligent, he is not so good a farmer. Is not this a true view? It strikes me continually. The traces of a man's hand in a new country are rarely productive of beauty. It is a cutting down of forest ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... the meaning of this?" he said; "how negligent of Sir Francis Varney; or perhaps, after all, he was only jesting with me, and let the prisoner go. If that should be the case, I am foiled indeed; but surely he could not be so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... that remains to them from antiquity, is something gigantic in their expressions and in their external magnificence; but this baseless grandeur is frequently accompanied by all that is vulgar in taste, and miserably negligent in domestic life. Is this, Corinne, the nation which you would be expected to prefer to every other? Is this the nation whose roaring applauses are so necessary to you, that every other destiny would appear dull and ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... be worth while to observe, that though abstract reasoning, and the general maxims of philosophy and law establish this position, that property, and right, and obligation admit not of degrees, yet in our common and negligent way of thinking, we find great difficulty to entertain that opinion, and do even secretly embrace the contrary principle. An object must either be in the possession of one person or another. An action must either be performed ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... self on my Husband's Funeral-pile? What could tempt me, in short, to a Prolongation of my Life, I can't imagine, I, who am grown a perfect Skeleton, all wrinkled and deform'd. She paus'd, and pulling off, with a negligent but artful Air, her long silk Gloves; She display'd a soft, plump, naked Arm, and white as Snow: You see, Sir, said she, that all my Charms are blasted. Blasted, Madam, said the luscious Pontiff; No! Your Charms are still resistless: His Eyes, ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire

... respects, these parleys were not only attempts to preserve peace, but an additional ruse de guerre. By them he hoped to render the Russians either sufficiently negligent, to let themselves be surprised, dispersed, or, if united, sufficiently presumptuous to venture to wait his approach. In either case, the war would be finished by a coup-de-main, or by a victory. But Lauriston was not received. Narbonne, when he returned, stated, "that he had found the ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... to them, and gave them each a word as they passed in review. She was gracious, she was smiling, yet somehow she was negligent. I was not prepared that she should be used to homage. Perhaps I had thought that this bit of vassalage would give her pleasure. She treated it like an ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... the voice of an angel, but methinks his body is surely the habitation of Satan. He will sing an it please him—or when thou art by, my Father,—but, an it please him not, he is silent; ay, even under grievous stripes. The Precentor giveth him as negligent and ill-conditioned; and in choir, when he looketh most like to one of God's Saints, he is but plotting ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... "I am negligent of your lordship's concerns in my consideration of my own. You'll be wishing me to land you at ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... which fly our doctrine, and would be called Catholics, shall manifestly see how all these titles of antiquity, whereof they boast so much, are quite shaken out of their hands; and that there is more pith in this our cause than they thought for; we then hope and trust that none of them will be so negligent and careless of his own salvation, but he will at length study and bethink himself to whether part he were best to join him. Undoubtedly, except one will altogether harden his heart and refuse to hear, he shall not repent him to give good heed ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... then, Johnny McComas was perfectly willing to stand to one side while Raymond Prince, surrounded by several of the fellows, came down, in his own negligent and self-assured way, the main stairway of Grant's Private Academy. For Johnny was newer there; Johnny was younger in this world by a year or two, at an age when a year or two makes a difference; and Johnny had but ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... spring. Having decided upon this, he was not a person to be turned from his plan by difficulties. He thought both Mr. Latour and Mr. Bellairs had been remiss in their work of dealing with the squatters, and felt a sort of resentment against them for having taken such negligent care of his property. He did not like at present to go so far as to take the case entirely out of his brother-in-law's hands, but he had decided that it would be necessary himself to look after, and urge on, the proceedings which were ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... and indeed most German ones," says my Tourist, "are made on one type; an agglomerate of dusty farmyards, with their stalls and barns; all the farmyards huddled together in two rows; a broad negligent road between, seldom mended, never swept except by the elements. Generally there is nothing to be seen, on each hand, but thatched roofs, dead clay walls and rude wooden gates; sometimes a poor public-house, with probable beer in it; never any shop, nowhere any patch of swept pavement, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the rush of the Fall disturbs the superincumbent gases too much to permit it; for there can be but little doubt that there is plenty of materiel at hand, and, some day or other, a lighthouse will be lit with it to guide sleepy loons and other negligent water-fowl over the Falls. I wonder they do not get up a Carburetted Hydrogen Gas Company there, with a suitable engineer and railway, so that visitors might cross over to Goat Island on an atmospheric line. There are plenty of railway stags on ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... proper to make off also. I opened the door and stood half in it, that those in the outward chamber might hear what I said, but held it so close that they could not look in. I bade my lord formal farewell for the night, and added, that something more than usual must have happened to make Evans negligent on this important occasion, who had always been so punctual in the smallest trifles, that I saw no other remedy than to go in person. That if the Tower was then open, when I had finished my business, I would return that night; but that he might be assured ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... The duke alighted, in order to help her: she was so greatly stunned, that her thoughts were otherwise employed than about decency on the present occasion; and those who first crowded around her found her rather in a negligent posture: they could hardly believe that limbs of such exquisite beauty could belong to Miss Churchill's face. After this accident, it was remarked that the duke's tenderness and affection for her increased every day; and, towards the end ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... punishment. And when ye shall have ended your prayer, remember God, standing, and sitting, and lying on your sides. But when ye are secure from danger, complete your prayers; for prayer is commanded the faithful, and appointed to be said at the stated times. Be not negligent in seeking out the unbelieving people, though ye suffer some inconvenience; for they also shall suffer, as ye suffer, and ye hope for a reward from God which they cannot hope for; and God is knowing and wise. We have sent down unto thee the book of the Koran with ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... sent to Rome his agent, William de Mauclerc, in order to appeal to the Pope against the violence of his barons, and procure him a favorable sentence from that powerful tribunal. The barons, also, were not negligent on their part in endeavoring to engage the Pope in their interests. They despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent as their feudal lord, and petitioned him to interpose his authority with the King, and oblige him to restore and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... before, but, as his teacher intimated, he had not profited much by it. If anything, he had grown more indolent and negligent, within a few months. On going home that night, Ralph accosted ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell

... beauty. He wore a pair of spectacles, and, in reading, a second pair over the first: but these took little from the sense of power conveyed by those steady eyes, and that "bar of Michael Angelo." His dress was not conspicuous, being however rather negligent than otherwise, and noticeable, if at all, only for a straight sack-coat buttoned at the throat, descending at least to the knees, and having large pockets cut into it perpendicularly at the sides. This garment was, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... recent times it has far too much receded—especially in England. He performed the great service of labouring strenuously to piece together the past traditions of philosophy, to re-discover those which had been allowed to drop into oblivion, and to make out the genealogy of opinions as far as negligent predecessors had still left ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote

... attended to by the governors, who for this have maintained in Cavite a castellan, commandant, and chief justice, of the abilities and experience of Don Andres Perez Franco; so that, although I could rest, still I have not been negligent, but have gone in person, on the occasions for the equipment and building of vessels, every week to that port, which is a very necessary thing. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... conduct which such motives inspire, because the call for it is incessant. This disillusioning weakens the motivation to marriage sometimes on both sides, when girls grow careless in their dress and too negligent in their manners, one of the best schools of woman's morals; and when boys lose all restraints which the presence of girls usually enforces, there is a subtle deterioration. Thus, I believe, although of course it is impossible to prove, that this is one of the factors of a decreasing percentage ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... ideal form is that it promises some finality amid the endless maze of matter. But this higher completeness, which is beauty, whether it happen to exist or not, is never the immediate aim of Nature. It is everywhere implied, but nowhere expressed; for Nature is unwearied in producing, but negligent of the product. As soon as the end seems anywhere about to be attained, it is straightway made means again to something else, and so on forever. The earth and the air hasten to convert themselves into a plant, the flower into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... the ancients by a pathway of his own: to check, by a distinct reckoning, an individual reference to nature, and, if need was, fearlessly to depart from, what they had registered as the result of their investigations. A more legitimate charge against him was that he was negligent in his choice of forms for imitation; undervalued refinement of idea; took altogether a somewhat mean view of nature, or adulterated it with too large an infusion of the dancing-master. Certainly he was fonder of fritter than of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... tea table. For a while neither spoke; but glancing at him across the kettle, his mother noticed that he sat staring at the embers with a look she had never seen on his face, though its arrogant young outline was as familiar to her as her own thoughts. The look extended itself to his negligent attitude, to the droop of his long fine hands, the dejected tilt of his head against the cushions. It was like the moral equivalent of physical fatigue: he looked, as he himself would have phrased it, dead-beat, played out. Such an air was so foreign to his usual bright indomitableness that ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... to have special regard, as they will answer not only afore God, whose glory and truth is by these damnable Sects greatly sought to be defaced, but also will avoid her Majesty's indignation, which in such cases as these are, they ought not to escape, if they shall be found negligent and careless in the execution ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various

... ever-increasing roar, and wider-spreading deluge, hastening down the steeps in the night-watches. So that, along with Olaf or some way ahead of him, came immeasurable roaring waste of waters upon Knut's negligent fleet; shattered, broke, and stranded many of his ships, and was within a trifle of destroying the Golden Dragon herself, with Knut on board. Olaf and Onund, we need not say, were promptly there in person, doing their very best; the railings of the Golden Dragon, ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... as evening arrived, I performed my visit. Carwin made one of the company into which I was ushered. Appearances were the same as when I before beheld him. His garb was equally negligent and rustic. I gazed upon his countenance with new curiosity. My situation was such as to enable me to bestow upon it a deliberate examination. Viewed at more leisure, it lost none of its wonderful properties. I could not deny my homage to the intelligence ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... Dutch, great, and grow more by our poverty. The Parliament backward in raising, because jealous of the spending of the money; the City less and less likely to be built again, every body settling elsewhere, and nobody encouraged to trade. A sad, vicious, negligent Court, and all sober men there fearful of the ruin of the whole kingdom this next year; from which, good God deliver us! One thing I reckon remarkable in my owne condition is, that I am come to abound in good plate, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... of my company was effected. The men of the 13th Division, who were taking over our line, replaced one after another my men on the firing-step, and kept the negligent fire unbroken. With a whisper I officially handed over my ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... that our lives disclose their meanings best, when we look back on them, how much of the understanding of them, and the drawing of all its sweetness out of each event in them, is entrusted to memory! And how negligent of a great means of happiness and strength we are, if we do not often muse on 'all the way by which God the Lord has led us these many years in the wilderness'! It is needful for Christian progress to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... reach Rizal through his family—one of many similar petty persecutions. His sister Lucia's husband had died and the corpse was refused interment in consecrated ground, upon the pretext that the dead man, who had been exceptionally liberal to the church and was of unimpeachable character, had been negligent in his religious duties. Another individual with a notorious record of longer absence from confession died about the same time, and his funeral took place from the church without demur. The ugly feature about the refusal to bury Hervosa was that the telegram from the friar parish-priest ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... passage and reflection of outside forms and events He calls up the recollection of "himself" with an effort, and not infrequently wrongly, he readily confounds himself with other persons, he makes mistakes with regard to his own needs, and here only is he unrefined and negligent Perhaps he is troubled about the health, or the pettiness and confined atmosphere of wife and friend, or the lack of companions and society—indeed, he sets himself to reflect on his suffering, but in vain! His thoughts already rove away to the MORE GENERAL case, and ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have followed the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in a year, they began work at the proper time. I expect that you will make it your business to change all that. As for me, I shall work at my drawings again. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... large among the natives in these islands for their trading and business, they can very easily under this pretext and appearance with all safety, security, and freedom, investigate and note the ports, islands, and settlements; they can also see how careless and negligent the forces have become, and can observe the lack of troops, forces, and defense from which we suffer. Thus they may dare to interfere, and can bring to these islands any enemy or enemies whatsoever, who are covetous of the islands; or they may plan some alliance ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... rebellious owner of the fort of Babboo-koosh-Ghur. On the approach of our force he decamped with all his vassals, and as it was advisable to leave some permanent mark of our displeasure, the bastions were blown down with gunpowder. It seems that the enemy imagined we were very negligent in camp, for they honored us the same evening with one of their night attacks, for which they are famous, the object in general being rather to harass their adversary by keeping him on the alert than ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... or escape censure. How is he vilified by [127] Caligula, Agellius, Fabius, and Lipsius himself, his chief propugner? In eo pleraque pernitiosa, saith the same Fabius, many childish tracts and sentences he hath, sermo illaboratus, too negligent often and remiss, as Agellius observes, oratio vulgaris et protrita, dicaces et ineptae, sententiae, eruditio plebeia, an homely shallow writer as he is. In partibus spinas et fastidia habet, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... the Italian all'armi!] An apprehension from sudden noise or report. The drum or signal by which men are summoned to stand on their guard in time of danger.—False alarm is sometimes occasioned by a timid or negligent sentry, and at others designedly by an officer, to ascertain the promptness of his men. Sometimes false alarms are given by the enemy to harass the adversary. Old Rider defines alarm as a "watch-word shewing the neernesse ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... of the poor and the weak, the negligent, shiftless, inefficient, silly, and imprudent are fastened upon the industrious and prudent as a responsibility and a duty. On the one side, the terms are extended to cover the idle, intemperate, and vicious, who, by the combination, gain credit which they do not deserve, ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... outside the precincts of the feeble forts that dotted the Indian territory. Bouquet had hoped for help from the settlers and government of Pennsylvania; but the settlers thought only of immediate safety, and the government was criminally negligent in leaving the frontier of the state unprotected, and would vote neither men nor money for defence. But they must be saved in spite of themselves. By energetic efforts, in eighteen days after his arrival at Carlisle, Bouquet was ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis



Words linked to "Negligent" :   lax, remiss, inattentive, diligent, slack, careless, neglect, derelict, neglectful, hit-and-run, negligence, delinquent



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