inattentive
/ɪnəˈtɛntɪv
/adjective
1Not paying attention to something: a particularly dull and inattentive pupil...
- He wrote that contemporary literary criticism was too often ‘worldless’, by which he meant inattentive to the circumstances that press upon texts, writers and readers alike.
- The public is often inattentive to agency decision-making, and so public involvement is minimal (though organized interest groups do pay close attention, and are heavily involved in rule-making and implementation).
- What happened to his father, of course, was his father got hammered by Democrats for seemingly being inattentive to an onset of a recession, and that's partly how he lost his job.
Synonyms
not concentrating, distracted, lacking concentration, preoccupied, absent-minded, daydreaming, dreamy, dreaming, wool-gathering, lost in thought, off in a world of one's own, in a brown study, with one's head in the clouds, abstracted, distrait, oblivious, not with us, unheeding
informal miles away
1.1Failing to attend to the comfort or wishes of others: I was disappointed by the food and the inattentive service...
- If my service is rude or inattentive, I start subtracting from the tip.
- Also recalling the inattentive service from Stephanie last night, we made sure to sit on the other side of the diner so we would have the same friendly, efficient waiter who served us on the way up.
- Your attitude and demeanor can betray how you feel as clearly as inattentive service.
Synonyms
negligent, neglectful, remiss, slack, sloppy, slapdash, lackadaisical, lax;
forgetful, careless, thoughtless, heedless, unthinking;
indifferent, unconcerned, inconsiderate
Derivatives
inattentively
/ adverb ...- Well, last week Tom took some copies out of the copy machine a little, shall we say, inattentively, and stapled them without looking at them.
- Audiences tend to consume ads - particularly print ads - inattentively, perhaps even uncritically, yet ads generate meaning by initiating processes in which texts and audiences interact.
- Either you'll be enthralled by his underplayed persona or drift aimlessly and inattentively away from his soporific compositions.
inattentiveness
/ noun ...- Cannabis use leads to delayed reactions and inattentiveness.
- What's more, classroom inattentiveness and lack of focus (the fidget factor) among school-age children can in part be attributed to a lack of accurate fit between chair, desk and those who use them.
- In more practical terms, many of the psychiatric medications cause lethargy and inattentiveness, and awkward explanations are required for long gaps in your employment history.