Meaning & use
careless mistake
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Meaning
nouncountable
An error caused by not paying enough attention or not being careful.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a careless mistake' or 'careless mistakes'. It often follows 'make' or 'due to'.
Patterns
- make a careless mistake
- a careless mistake in something
- due to a careless mistake
I made a careless mistake on the test and lost five points.
The report was full of careless mistakes, so the manager asked for a revision.
Losing the keys was a careless mistake that cost him an hour.
Word forms
| plural | careless mistakes |
|---|
Common combinations
- make a careless mistake
- Even experts make a careless mistake now and then.
- a careless mistake in calculation
- A careless mistake in calculation led to the wrong total.
- avoid careless mistakes
- Proofread your work to avoid careless mistakes.
- full of careless mistakes
- The essay was full of careless mistakes.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sloppy mistake
- This is more informal and suggests a lack of care or organization, while 'careless mistake' simply points to inattention.
- oversight
- This is more formal and often implies forgetting something, not necessarily being careless.
Word family
- carelessly adverb
- In a way that shows lack of attention.
- carelessness noun
- The quality of not being careful.
Commonly confused: careless mistake or carefree?
careless mistake vs carefree
Carefree means free from worry and happy; it is not related to making errors.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'careless mistake' correctly.
Choose one answer.
'Careless mistake' is a noun phrase and needs a verb like 'made' before it. The other options either omit the verb, use it as an adjective for a person, or confuse it with the verb 'mistook'.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “careless mistake”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.