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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness \For*get"ful*ness\, n.

  1. The quality of being forgetful; prononess to let slip from the mind.

  2. Loss of remembrance or recollection; a ceasing to remember; oblivion.

    A sweet forgetfulness of human care.
    --Pope.

  3. Failure to bear in mind; careless omission; inattention; as, forgetfulness of duty.

    Syn: Forgetfulnes, Oblivion.

    Usage: Forgetfulness is Anglo-Saxon, and oblivion is Latin. The former commonly has reference to persons, and marks a state of mind; the latter commonly has reference to things, and indicates a condition into which they are sunk. We blame a man for his forgetfulness; we speak of some old custom as buried in oblivion. But this discrimination is not strictly adhered to.

Wiktionary
forgetfulness

n. 1 The quality of being forgetful; proneness to let slip from the mind. 2 Loss of remembrance or recollection; a ceasing to remember; oblivion. 3 Failure to bear in mind; careless omission; inattention.

WordNet
forgetfulness
  1. n. tendency to forget

  2. unawareness caused by neglectful or heedless failure to remember; "his forgetfulness increased as he grew older"

Usage examples of "forgetfulness".

It is clear that if forgetfulness of a benefit steals over a man, he cannot have often thought about repaying it.

Mary experienced the effect often consequent upon grief quietly borne, and soon sunk into temporary forgetfulness, while Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in proportion as the night advanced with its deepest and stillest hours.

Of the greatest evils, Marshal Garris taught only their names and general attacks: Nayda, the Unnamer, who threatened forgetfulness, and Gitres, the Unmaker.

The fifth is, forgetfulness by too much drinking, for which a man sometimes forgetteth by the morrow what be did at eve.

Has thy triumph utterly cast forgetfulness upon thee, and reekest thou nothing of all that thou spakest when held fast by necessity?

At last I bethought myself that the giddy nun was certainly labouring under constant dread, knowing that I had in my possession her two letters, with which I could ruin her reputation and cause the greatest injury to the convent, and I sent them back to her with the following note, after I had kept them ten days: "I can assure you, madam, that it was owing only to forgetfulness that I did not return your two letters which you will find enclosed.

I said, respectfully, "but I thought, no doubt correctly, that the omission was due to forgetfulness, and I thought myself obliged all the same to come and pay my court to your excellency.

With me mere anger has never been of long duration, but when I am indignant the only cure is forgetfulness.

Could there be any harm, any forgetfulness of her own duty, in using the key inclosed in the note, and keeping her appointment in the Ascoli gardens at ten o'clock?

Twenty million dollars and a Gulfstream bizjet bought a lot of comfort, especially in Brazil--it bought a lot of forgetfulness, too.

Of the noisome pits wherein she had been, of that bournless realm and its pullulating phantoms, she could tell us nothing: her agony had ended with the terrible mercy of complete forgetfulness.

Her memory of little Willie and the breadman was fading away like a lurid sunset into the tender greyness of forgetfulness.

Nor even out of distraction or forgetfulness or because he smoked dope with his buddies or exhaustion--you know, John Reddy never got enough sleep.

The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious forgetfulness.

Shielding his eyes, F'lessan glanced at the lowering sun and then, berating himself for his forgetfulness, looked at his wristwatch.