carelessly
adverb
Simple meaning
Done without care or attention.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kehrluhsleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɛɹləsli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
Done without care or attention; inattentively.
Without care or concern
“Carelessly raised the children's hopes without thinking of their possible disappointment.”
Giving the appearance of carelessness; relaxedly.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Done without care or attention; inattentively.
Used this way, carelessly is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use carelessly
- “Carelessly raised the children's hopes without thinking of their possible disappointment.”adverb
- “One unfortunately sees historic features carelessly lost when estates fall into unsympathetic hands.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Marked by lack of attention or consideration or forethought or thoroughness.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The quality of not being careful or taking pains.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.