negligible

adjective

neg·​li·​gi·​ble ˈne-gli-jə-bəl 

: so small or unimportant or of so little consequence as to warrant little or no attention : trifling

a negligible error

last year sales were negligible

a negligible risk

a negligible effect

negligibility

ˌne-gli-jə-ˈbi-lə-tē 

noun

negligibly

ˈne-gli-jə-blē 

adverb

Did you know?

Negligible comes from the same Latin verb as neglect, so something negligible is literally "neglectable". If an accident results in negligible damage to your car, you should be thankful. If two years of intense focus on testing in the classroom results in a negligible improvement in student test scores, it's probably time to try something new.

Synonyms

• nominal
• slight
• insignificant
• trivial
• tiny

Examples of negligible in a Sentence

A negligible amount of damage was done to the vehicle.

The price difference was negligible.

Recent Examples on the Web

Maybe Berry was confident that the addition of Flacco for the Bengals would make a negligible difference for their struggling offense. —MSNBC Newsweek, 13 Oct. 2025

Niki Woodard, a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission, said the El Segundo fire is expected to hit jet-fuel supplies harder than gasoline, with jet-fuel prices jumping about 30 cents Friday and and negligible changes at the pump in the wake of the incident. —Calmatters, Mercury News, 10 Oct. 2025

Segal bought both soccer clubs in 2021 for roughly $400 million, and the Dash were a negligible part of the transaction financially. —Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico.com, 8 Oct. 2025

Impacts on air travel have been negligible so far. —Marina Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 8 Oct. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Latinization of French négligeable, from négliger "to disregard, neglect" (going back to Middle French negliger, borrowed from Latin neglegere, neclegere "to disregard, do nothing about") + -able -able — more at neglect entry 1

First Known Use

1829, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

negligible

adjective

neg·​li·​gi·​ble ˈneg-li-jə-bəl 

: so small or unimportant as to deserve little or no attention

a negligible error

negligibly

-blē 

adverb