Derelict

/ˈdɛr.ə.lɪkt/ · adjective

Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

1. Given up by the guardian or owner; abandoned, forsaken.
2. (by extension) Of property: in a poor state due to abandonment or neglect; dilapidated, neglected.
3. (figurative) Adrift, lost.
4. (chiefly US) Negligent in performing a duty; careless.
5. (uncountable) Property abandoned by its former guardian or owner; (countable) an item of such property.
6. (countable, dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast, a waif.
7. (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.
8. (countable, chiefly US) A person who is negligent in performing a duty.

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; […]

We may be pardoned our nostalgia, those of us who can remember the old days, the days before the grouping and before standardisation, when we see, as today we see so often, the derelict and abandoned buildings of what were once railway stations, for the life which they used to enjoy we lived with them. There they stand, today, as the dusk deepens about them, lampless, cold and deserted.

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.

Deprived of his guiding influence, they vvere vvhirled about, the ſport of every guſt, and eaſily driven into any port; and as thoſe vvho joined vvith them in manning the veſſel vvere the moſt directly oppoſite to his opinions, meaſures, and character, and far the moſt artful and moſt povverful of the ſet, they eaſily prevailed, ſo as to ſeize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and inſtantly they turned the veſſel vvholly out of the courſe of his policy.

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.

But often it must have happened in a course of centuries, that plague, small-pox, cholera, the sweating-sickness, or other scourges of universal Europe and Asia, would absolutely depopulate a region no larger than an island; […] In such cases, mere strangers would oftentimes enter upon the lands as a derelict.

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.

Synonyms for derelict

Antonyms for derelict

Related Words

Word Forms

• more derelict
• most derelict
• derelicts
• derelicting
• derelicted

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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