inadvertent

(in-ad-vér’tent), a. [= F. inadver- tant = It. inavvertente (in adv.); as in-3 + advertent.| 1. Not properly attentive; heedle ; carele ; negligent. However, he allows at length that men may be dishonest in obtruding circumstances foreign to the object; and we may be inadvertent in allowing those circumstances to impose upon us. War burton, Postscript to Ded. to the Free-Thinkers. An tnadvertent step may crush the snail, That crawls at evening in the public path. Cowper, Task, vi. 564, 2. Unconscious; unintentional; accidental. Another secret charm of this book [White’s ‘‘ Natural History of Selborne”] is its inadvertent humor, so much the more delicious because unsuspected by the author. Lowell, Study Windows, p. 2. =§: Inattentive, unobservant, thoughtle .