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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

carelessness.

Lack of care; the state or quality of being careless.

12 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkɛɹləsnəs/General-American/ˈkɛələsnəs/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Lack of care; the state or quality of being careless.

    countable · uncountable
    This accident was caused by carelessness.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ǵeh₂r-der. Proto-Germanic *karō Proto-West Germanic *karu Old English caru Proto-Indo-European *lewh₁- Proto-Indo-European *lewHs-der. Proto-Germanic *leusaną Proto-Germanic *lausaz Proto-Germanic *-lausaz Proto-West Germanic *-laus Old English -lēas Old English carlēas Proto-Germanic *-in- Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti Proto-Germanic *-ōną Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Old English carlēasnes Middle English *carelesnes English carelessness From Middle English *carelesnes, *carlesnesse, from Old English carlēasnes (“freedom from care, security, carelessness”), equivalent to careless + -ness.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.