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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
inattentive
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
inattentive students
▪ In spite of the inattentive servers and the bad decor, it's worth eating at Leon's for the great cheap food.
▪ Roger was hyperactive and inattentive as a child.
▪ The government is still being accused of being inattentive to the plight of the Health Service.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Another hazard in dealing with inattentive children is treating them in a mechanical and inflexible manner.
▪ It is understandable: the child considers himself safe in the residential street and is inattentive on the way to school.
▪ Like Bush, Reagan was inattentive, unlearned and apparently simplistic.
▪ Our seemingly more inattentive child may get turned on by something other than conversations with her parents.
▪ That is how inattentive children feel.
▪ The sometimes inattentive audience only betrayed the fact that they were as much participants in the total popular-cultural spectacle as the performers.
▪ The storyline has twists and turns to challenge the inattentive.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Inattentive

Inattentive \In`at*ten"tive\, a. [Cf. F. inattentif.] Not attentive; not fixing the mind on an object; heedless; careless; negligent; regardless; as, an inattentive spectator or hearer; an inattentive habit.
--I. Watts.

Syn: Careless; heedless; regardless; thoughtless; negligent; remiss; inadvertent. -- In`at*ten"tive*ly, adv. -- In`at*ten"tive*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
inattentive

1741, from in- (1) "not, opposite of" + attentive. Related: Inattentively; inattentiveness.

Wiktionary
inattentive

a. Of or pertaining to lack of attention; not paying attention; careless.

WordNet
inattentive
  1. adj. showing a lack of attention; "inattentive students" [ant: attentive]

  2. inattentive because of lack of interest

  3. not showing due care or attention; "inattentive students"; "an inattentive babysitter"; "neglectful parents" [syn: neglectful]

  4. unwilling to hear [syn: unheeding, unlistening(a), deaf to(p)]

  5. not paying attention [syn: unobservant, unvigilant, unwatchful]

Usage examples of "inattentive".

The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the abuse of chemistry.

Clementine alone would not profit by my inattentive play, but the last two days I insisted on taking her into partnership, and as the canon's bad luck still continued she profited to the extent of a hundred louis.

In Kasbeam a very old barber gave me a very mediocre haircut: he babbled of a baseball-playing son of his, and, at every explodent, spat into my neck, and every now and then wiped his glasses on my sheet-wrap, or interrupted his tremulous scissor work to produce faded newspaper clippings, and so inattentive was I that it came as a shock to realize as he pointed to an easeled photograph among the ancient gray lotions, that the mustached young ball player had been dead for the last thirty years.

Or that unfortunate alcoholic Bateson who used to throw a wet boxing glove at inattentive boys and then retrieve it on a string?

Perhaps it was simply that without associates trained to the same practices, without supervision by teachers, without the bracing atmosphere of Waldzell, I gradually lost the discipline, that I grew sluggish and inattentive and succumbed to carelessness, and that in moments of guilty conscience I then excused myself on the ground that carelessness was one of the attributes of this world, and that by giving way to it I was coming closer to an understanding of my environment.

This is simply done by replacing the independent private workshop by the compulsory national workshop in this way replacing piece-work by work by the day, and the attentive, energetic workman who minds his business and expects to earn money in return by inattentive apathic workmen pressed into a poorly paid service but paid even when they botch the job or laze about.

Alicia has noticed that Roman is inattentive to his personal hygiene, and has to remind herself that his odour of musk was attractive to her in the early days.

Helper that if a plantation owner were going to be lazy, or indifferent, or cruel to his slaves, or inattentive to every small and irritating item of management, he might do better hiring his help rather than owning it.

Helper that if a plantation owner were going to be lazy, or indifferent, or cruel to his slaves, or inattentive to every small and ir­.