different between derelict vs relict

English

Etymology

Latin derelictus, perfect passive participle of d?relinqu? (“to forsake, abandon”) from d?- + relinqu? (“to abandon, relinquish, leave (behind)”), from r?- + linqu? (“to leave, quit, forsake, depart from”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d???l?kt/

Adjective

derelict (comparative more derelict, superlative most derelict)

1. Abandoned, forsaken; given up by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.

   There was a derelict ship on the island.

   • 1649, Jeremy Taylor, The History of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ

     The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion.
2. Negligent in performing a duty.
3. Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful.
   • 1774, Edmund Burke, A Speech on American Taxation

     They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.

   • 1859, John Buchanan, Third State of the Union Address

     A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.

Synonyms

• (abandoned): abandoned

Translations

Noun

derelict (plural derelicts)

1. Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.
2. (dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.
   • 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):

     A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.

3. A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene. (This sense is a modern development of the preceding sense.)
   • 2002, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence, The Boy in the Bush, edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:

     If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —

Translations

See also

• flotsam
• jetsam
• lagan
• salvage

Anagrams

• relicted, reticled

English

Etymology

From Latin relictus, past participle of relinqu? (“I abandon, I relinquish, I leave (behind)”), from re- + linqu? (“I leave, quit, forsake, depart from”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???l?kt/

Noun

relict (plural relicts)

1. (formal) Something that, or someone who, survives or remains or is left over after the loss of others; a relic.
   1. (archaic) The surviving member of a married couple after one or the other has died; a widow or widower.
      • 1801, in the Reports of cases decided in the High court of Chancery of Maryland, volume 3, page 268:

        Upon which the Chancellor, by way of note said, 'it is suggested, that there is a relict of the deceased, married to another man, who has joined her in a power of attorney to authorize the sale of her interest, […] '

      • 1973, Patrick O'Brian, HMS Surprise:

        But I am not the penniless nonentity I was when we first met; I can offer an honorable if not a brilliant marriage; and at the very lowest I can provide my wife – my widow, my relict – with a decent competence, an assured future.

   2. (biology, ecology) A species, organism, or ecosystem which has survived from a previous age: one which was once widespread but which is now found only in a few areas.
      • 2010, M. Zimmerman et al., in Relict Species: Phylogeography and Conservation Biology (edited by Jan Christian Habel, Thorsten Assmann), page 324:

        The species may be a relict of former stages of historical vegetation and landscape development resulting from past climate changes (glacial and post- glacial periods).

   3. (geology) A structure or other feature that has survived from a previous age.
      • 2011, Mark Keiter, Chris Ballhaus, Frank Tomaschek, A New Geological Map of the Island of Syros (Aegean Sea, Greece), page 16:

        Dark rims around the pillows are caused by glaucophane enrichment, possibly a relict of a primary interaction between basalt and seawater, causing Na- enrichment in the original glass crust of the pillows.

   4. (linguistics) A survival of an archaic word, language or other form.

      A small number of linguists believe that Cimbrian is not an Austro-Bavarian dialect but a relict of Lombardic.

Translations

Adjective

relict (not comparable)

1. Surviving, remaining.
2. That is a relict; pertaining to a relict.
   • 1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, page 97:

     In the lakes and in the streams were species of fish not known elsewhere on earth and birds and lizards and other forms of life as well all long relict here for the desert stretched away on every side.

Related terms

• delict
• delinquency
• delinquent
• derelict
• relic
• relinquish
• reliquary

Further reading

• relict in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• relict in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• relict at OneLook Dictionary Search