absent-minded

comparative more absent-minded · superlative most absent-minded · alternative absentminded

1. Absent in mind; often preoccupied; forgetful or careless due to distraction; easily distracted.First known use First attested in the mid 19ᵗʰ century.

   It took the absent-minded man twenty minutes to find his glasses on top of his head.

   3 more examples

   Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Loomings”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 2

   For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men[…]. Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task[…

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Mast-Head”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 175

   His figure was bent in apologetic protest. "I ask a thousand pardons, sir," he said; "I am really so very absent-minded."

   1900, Kenneth Grahame, The Golden Age, page 110