dereliction
noun
Simple meaning
Willful neglect of one's duty.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dehruhlikshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɛɹəˈlɪkʃən
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.
noun
Willful neglect of one's duty.
Willful negligence
The act of abandoning something, or the state of being abandoned.
Land gained from the water by a change of water-line.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Willful neglect of one's duty.
Used this way, dereliction is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It turns up most in ethics or values contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Ethics/values
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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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.