Negligents

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A state of being careless or inattentive, especially in a way that results in harm or error
2. Describing individuals who fail to take proper care or exercise caution, leading to oversight or mistakes
3. Characterizing actions or behaviors marked by a lack of concern and responsibility towards duties or obligations

Etymology: Latin "negligere" meant "not to pick up," built from "nec," meaning "not," and "legere," which originally meant "to gather" before it came to mean "to read." To neglect something was, literally, to fail to gather it up. The Latin present participle "negligens" described someone careless in this way, and it passed into English as "negligent," meaning inattentive or lax. "Negligents" is the plural of a noun use of that adjective, so it names a group of careless people rather than the quality itself. English does this with other adjectives too, as in "the wicked" or "the poor," turning a description into a category of people. The same "legere" root also gave us "lecture" and "select," so the family of words is more varied than its careless sense suggests.