means The failure to take the care that a reasonable person would take in the circumstances, especially when that carelessness causes harm to someone else.

from From Latin negligere, 'to disregard, to not pick up,' built from neg- ('not') and legere ('to gather, to choose')—the same legere that gives us 'collect' and 'lecture.' So at its root, negligence is literally the act of not gathering up, of leaving things lying where they fell. It reached English through Old French negligence, and the legal sense—where not bothering becomes a thing you can be sued for—grew up alongside the development of common law.