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

• chicken
• de minimis
• footling
• inconsequential
• inconsiderable
• insignificant
• measly
• Mickey Mouse
• minute
• niggling
• no-account
• nominal
• paltry
• peanut
• petty
• picayune
• piddling
• piddly
• piffling
• pimping
• slight
• trifling
• trivial

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

The good news in this case is that Eva’s advantage of being able to place her ball directly in the basket was negligible, seeing as how all the other players seemed to land theirs on their first or second shot. —Dalton Ross, EW.com, 22 May 2025

For searches that are less supported in AI Overviews—things like restaurants and financial services—the traffic change has been negligible. —Ryan Whitwam, ArsTechnica, 20 May 2025

For example, our SEO Team Lead observed that a single Q&A-style blog post on a niche legal question was able to attract roughly 100 visitors per month, even though keyword research tools labeled its search volume as negligible. —Anton Kovalchuk, Forbes.com, 24 Apr. 2025

Sucralose is zero calories, but Splenda contains dextrose and maltodextrin, which add a negligible amount of calories—especially since sucralose, which is up to 600 times as sweet as sugar, is often used sparingly. —Carmen Rios, Flow Space, 23 Apr. 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