forget

From Middle English forgeten, forgiten, foryeten, forȝiten, from Old English forġietan (“to forget”) [influenced by Old Norse geta ("to get, to guess")], from Proto-West Germanic *fragetan (“to give up, forget”). Equivalent to for- +‎ get.

Cognate with :

• Scots forget, forȝet (“to forget”),
• West Frisian fergette, ferjitte, forjitte (“to forget”),
• Dutch vergeten (“to forget”),
• German vergessen (“to forget”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fəˈɡɛt/,^[1] (less commonly:) /fɔːˈɡɛt/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation); “to forget”:

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /fɚˈɡɛt/,^[2][3][4] (less commonly:) /fɔɹˈɡɛt/^[2][3][4]

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: for‧get
• Rhymes: -ɛt

forget (third-person singular simple present forgets, present participle forgetting, simple past forgot or (obsolete) forgat, past participle forgotten or (archaic or colloquial) forgot)

1. (transitive) To lose remembrance of.

   I have forgotten most of the things I learned in school.

   • 1593, Tho[mas] Nashe, Christs Teares Over Ierusalem. […], London: […] Iames Roberts, and are to be solde by Andrewe Wise, […], →OCLC, folio 60, verso:

     VVe (of all earthlings) are Gods vtmoſt ſubiects, the laſt (in a manner) that he bought to his obedience: ſhal we then forgette that vvee are any ſubiects of hys, becauſe (as amongſt his Angels) he is not viſibly conuerſant amongſt vs?

   • 1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.

   • 1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 4, in Well Tackled!‎^[1]:

     Technical terms like ferrite, perlite, graphite, and hardenite were bandied to and fro, and when Paget glibly brought out such a rare exotic as ferro-molybdenum, Benson forgot that he was a master ship-builder, […]

   • 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 35:

     Everybody, old and young, laughs uproariously at this and immediately forgets all about it.

   • 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in A.V. Club‎^[2], archived from the original on 29 March 2013:

     Valentine’s Day means different things for different people. For Homer, it means forking over a hundred dollars for a dusty box of chocolates at the Kwik-E-Mart after characteristically forgetting the holiday yet again. For Ned, it’s another opportunity to prove his love for his wife. Most germane to the episode, for Lisa, Valentine’s Day means being the only person in her entire class to give Ralph a Valentine after noticing him looking crestfallen and alone at his desk.

   • 2018, Guy Beiner, Forgetful Remembrance, page 625:

     In conditions of unlimited global-digital 'web-memory' (labelled by one critic a 'globital age'), social remembering and forgetting have become functions of algorithm-based search technologies that mine data from users […]

2. (transitive) To unintentionally not do, neglect.

   I forgot to buy flowers for my wife at our 14th wedding anniversary.

   • 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC:

     Pray, thou, therefore, to Slid, and forget not Slid, and it may be that Slid will not forget to send thee Death when most thou needest it.

3. (transitive) To unintentionally leave something behind.

   I forgot my car keys in the living room.

4. (intransitive) To cease remembering.

   Let's just forget I ever told you anything about it.

   He forgot having already visited this city.

5. (transitive, loosely, informal) To not realize something (regardless of whether one has ever known it).

   People forget how much work goes into what we do.

6. (slang) Euphemism for fuck, screw (a mild oath).

   Forget you!

• In sense 1 and 4 this is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing).
• In sense 2 this is a catenative verb that takes the to infinitive.
• See Appendix:English catenative verbs

• obliviate, overlook, pass over, disremember

• acquire, learn, mind, recall, recollect, remember, reminisce

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “forget”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “forget”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.