never mind

idiomatic phrase

1

—used to tell someone not to be concerned about or give attention to something or someone

Never mind your mistake: it wasn't serious.

So you made a little mistake! Never mind (about that): it wasn't serious.

'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' said I. 'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. 'I should be able to look after that for you.'

—Arthur Conan Doyle

He would tell Blossom that she might go back to her aunt and never mind about him—he would do very well by himself and he did not blame her in the least.

—Lucy Maud Montgomery

2

—used to say that something previously mentioned or asked can be disregarded

Do you know where my keys are? Oh, never mind. Here they are.

3

—used to refer to something that is even less likely or possible than something else being mentioned or described

I can barely understand it, never mind explain it.

With this knee I can hardly walk, never mind run.

Never mind mastering a second language or a subject syllabus, most us have enough difficulty remembering the orders for a round of drinks at the pub.

—David Robson

Synonyms

• let alone
• much less
• still less

Examples of never mind in a Sentence

I have a hard enough time getting out of bed before sunrise, never mind getting to work so early.

Recent Examples on the Web

Google warns that more than half of users don’t even use two-factor authentication (2FA) yet, never mind passkeys, so there’s some serious ground to cover. —Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 17 June 2025

To put the defeat in perspective, the Atari 2600 boasts just 0.3 MIPS of processing power, roughly 250,000 times less than an iPhone 15 Pro, never mind the hundred-million-dollar data centers powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT. —Will McCurdy, PC Magazine, 14 June 2025

Give Quigley a foot of space — never mind that, just a few inches — behind the 3-point arc. —Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 10 June 2025

The cost of just the travel/hotel would be nearly $2k, never mind all those little expenses like food, shoes, hair/makeup, etc. —Kirsty Hatcher, People.com, 28 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1677, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for never mind

• countersigned
• disinclined
• humankind
• interlined
• intertwined
• mastermind
• misaligned
• nonaligned
• predefined
• realigned
• reassigned
• recombined