Derelict

Quick meaning: Derelict is an adjective meaning Given up by the guardian or owner; abandoned, forsaken.

Meaning

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

More Meanings

1. (by extension) Of property: in a poor state due to abandonment or neglect; dilapidated, neglected.
2. (figurative) Adrift, lost.
3. (uncountable) Property abandoned by its former guardian or owner; (countable) an item of such property.
4. (countable, dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast, a waif.
5. (countable, chiefly US) A person who is negligent in performing a duty.
6. (countable, by extension, derogatory) A homeless or jobless person; a vagrant; also, a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their hygiene and personal affairs.
7. (chiefly US) Negligent in performing a duty; careless.

Example Sentences

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

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.

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.

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.

Word Forms

• derelicts
• derelicting
• derelicted

Synonyms for derelict

Depending on context, synonyms include dropped, forlorn, abandoned, desert, deserted, desolate.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include forsaken, delinquent, neglectful, remiss, negligent, discontinued.

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