Preoccupied; forgetful

Usage examples of absent-minded.

As for overt technophobia, early sf was full of Mad Scientists, Absent-minded Professors, Ravenous Monsters and Things Man Was Never Meant to Know.

While Messer-Grande was thus rummaging among my manuscripts, books and letters, I was dressing myself in an absent-minded manner, neither hurrying myself nor the reverse.

On the other side of the fire Reidel covered Linnit and smoothed down her hairthe sort of absent-minded, habitual gesture that he would give any suffering small thingand looked across at Cleta, smiling.

This man, apparently so foolishly good-natured, simple, and absent-minded, could guess all the cunning of a prison wag, unmask the astutest street huzzy, and subdue a scoundrel.

Niklaas seemed a bit absent-minded as she explained about dropping the box of cigars, and Dirk looked distinctly displeased with her intrusion.

Then you know what he's like -- an elderly dodderer well over seventy, short-sighted, amiable, a typically absent-minded professor in every respect but one.

He had his thick-fingered hands over his cards, his sludgy gray eyes glancing from Bardwell to the man on his left, whose cards were tilted forward, an absent-minded exposure obviously caused by Bard well's entrance.

Lifting his hand to his head, the absent-minded Professor gravely felt and removed the little cocked hat, looked at it a minute, and then threw back his head and laughed like a merry bass viol.

Does a librarian with an eidetic memory feel superior to an absent-minded professor who won a Nobel Prize?

There is a story of an absent-minded professor who went up to his bedroom to change his tie before guests arrived.

I think there were literary models then of pure scientists and their absent-mindedness, and jokes about the absent-minded professor and all that, and many scientists gladly fell into this stereotype of absent-mindedness and indifference, including indifference as to what became of their discoveries.

I look at her sharply but she's got her innocent face on, the absent-minded professor musing over a theorem rather than focussing on the world, the flesh, and the devils of Interpol's most-wanted list.

He seemed to be an outright caricature of the absent-minded professor.

I saw a paunchy man of average height in his middle or late seventies with Mark Twain hair, dressed like an absent-minded professor whose wife has recently discovered LSD.

Carl Zolg had returned to his normal appearance of a somewhat absent-minded professor.