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INATTENTION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lack of attention
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("inattention" is a kind of...):
basic cognitive process (cognitive processes involved in obtaining and storing knowledge)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "inattention"):
heedlessness; inattentiveness (a lack of attentiveness (as to children or helpless people))
distraction (an obstacle to attention)
disregard; neglect (lack of attention and due care)
Antonym:
attention (the process whereby a person concentrates on some features of the environment to the (relative) exclusion of others)
Context examples:
The current study is the first to use real-time driving data to quantify the extent to which visual inattention — the amount of time a teen’s eyes shift from the road to various distractions — contributes to the risk of a crash.
(Reaching for objects while driving may raise teen crash risk nearly sevenfold, National Institutes of Health)
It was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
This was quite a new idea to Mrs. Dashwood; she had never been used to find wit in the inattention of any one, and could not help looking with surprise at them both.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The two young men were the only talkers, but they, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of the qualification, the total inattention to it, in the ordinary school-system for boys, the consequently natural, yet in some instances almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great entertainment.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said Elinor.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she should engross at least half.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
