remiss

[ri-mis]

Origin

adjective

negligent, careless, or slow in performing one's duty, business, etc.: He's terribly remiss in his work.

characterized by negligence or carelessness.

lacking force or energy; languid; sluggish.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin remissus (past participle of remittere to send back, slacken, relax); see remit

Related forms

re·miss·ly, adverb

re·miss·ness, noun

o·ver·re·miss, adjective

o·ver·re·miss·ly, adverb

o·ver·re·miss·ness, noun

Synonyms
1, 2. derelict, thoughtless, lax, slack, neglectful. 3. dilatory, slothful, slow.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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a fool or simpleton; ninny.

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

remiss (rɪˈmɪs)

—*adj*
1.	lacking in care or attention to duty; negligent
2.	lacking in energy; dilatory

[C15: from Latin remissus from remittere to release, from re- + mittere to send]

re'missly

—*adv*

re'missness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

remiss

early 15c., "weak, dissolved," from L. remissus, pp. of remittere "slacken, abate, let go" (see remit). Meaning "characterized by lack of strictness" is attested from mid-15c.; that of "characterized by negligence" is from c.1500.

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Related Words

neglect neglectful

slack thoughtless

Matching Quote

"At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a charity-house, which we looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariners might fare. Far away in some desolate hollow by the seaside, just within the bank, stands a lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for shipwrecked men! What kind of sailor's homes were they?"

-Henry David Thoreau