derelict

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Given up by the guardian or owner

   Given up by the guardian or owner; abandoned, forsaken.

   • [T]heſe affections, vvhich theſe expoſed or derelict children bear to their Mothers, have no grounds of nature or aſſiduity but civility and opinion; […]
2. 2

   Of property

   Of property: in a poor state due to abandonment or neglect; dilapidated, neglected.

   • There is much sad evidence, too, of the spoliation and dereliction of vanished industry: tips, slag-heaps and derelict colliery-screens among which the ubiquitous, nomad mountain sheep graze unconcernedly.
3. 3

   Adrift, lost.

4. ›+ 7 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Negligent in performing a duty

      Negligent in performing a duty; careless.

      • The wrongs which we have suffered from Mexico are before the world, and must deeply impress every American citizen. A Government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.
   2. 5

      Property abandoned by its former guardian or owner

      Property abandoned by its former guardian or owner; (countable) an item of such property.

   3. 6

      An abandoned or forsaken person

      An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast, a waif.

      • And, think you, will the unkind ones hesitate / To try conclusions with my helplessness,— / To pounce on, misuse me, your derelict, / Helped by advantage that bereavement lends / Folks, who, while yet you lived, played tricks like these?
      • A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.
   4. 7

      A homeless or jobless person

      A homeless or jobless person; a vagrant; also, a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their hygiene and personal affairs.

      • Only she must have men—understand? If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men—British to the bone— […]
      • As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.
   5. 8

      A person who is negligent in performing a duty.

   6. 9

      To abandon or forsake (someone or something).

      • [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.
   7. 10

      To neglect a duty.

      • I don't remember vowing to be calmly cheerful under the infliction of the Pottingers and others of that ilk; but I must have done it, or Arthur wouldn't look as if I was so flagrantly derelicting from my duty.

The neighborhood

• neighbordereliction
• neighborrelic
• neighborrelict
• neighborrelinquish