Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Ignore for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Welcome. Today's word is ignore — spelled I-G-N-O-R-E, pronounced ig-NOR.
Narrator: Ignore is a verb. To ignore something means to deliberately pay no attention to it — to choose not to engage with something that is present and perceivable. To ignore a rude comment is to choose not to respond. To ignore a warning is to be aware of it and decide not to act on it.
Narrator: The word comes from Latin ignorare — to not know or to disregard — the same root as ignorant and ignorance. The earliest use of ignore in English was actually the legal one: a grand jury that found an indictment unsupported by evidence would write ignoramus on the bill, a Latin phrase meaning we do not know. The famous satirical play Ignoramus by George Ruggle, performed before King James I in 1615, used this legal formula as the name of its foolish lawyer character. From this legal and theatrical usage, ignoramus became a general term for a foolishly ignorant person, and ignore developed its modern sense.
Narrator: Ignore differs importantly from miss, overlook, or fail to notice: those imply unintentional absence of attention. Ignore implies deliberate, chosen inattention — you are aware of the thing and you have decided not to respond to it. This distinction matters in social interactions, legal contexts, and computing.
Narrator: In computing, to ignore a signal, a request, or an error is to receive it and choose not to act on it — an explicit design decision rather than a failure of processing.
Narrator: Remember this: ignore — the active decision to treat something as if it were not there, which is very different from simply not seeing it.
Speaker A: The social psychology of being ignored — the experience of social exclusion through deliberate non-acknowledgement — is one of the most studied in contemporary social and clinical psychology. Research by Kipling Williams using the Cyberball paradigm — a computer game in which participants are gradually excluded from a virtual ball-tossing game — has documented that social exclusion, even by anonymous strangers in a meaningless virtual context, produces genuine and significant psychological pain. Brain imaging shows that being ignored activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. Williams's research coined the term ostracism for social exclusion by ignoring, and documented that even very brief ostracism experiences have measurable negative effects on belonging, self-esteem, and control.
Speaker B: Yes. And the legal history of ignoramus — from the grand jury practice to the general term for ignorance — is one of the more entertaining in the development of English legal vocabulary. The grand jury practice of writing ignoramus on the back of an unsupported indictment dates to medieval English legal procedure. The word means in Latin we do not know — the jury's statement that it had insufficient knowledge of the facts to support the prosecution. Ruggle's 1615 play Ignoramus, which featured a pompous and incompetent lawyer by that name, was so successful that ignoramus entered the language as a general term for a foolishly ignorant person, and the legal formula became a word for stupidity.
Speaker A: Right. And the deliberate ignoring of scientific evidence — the political and policy practice of ignoring established scientific consensus — is one of the most studied in science communication and political science. Research on motivated reasoning — the tendency to process information in ways that confirm pre-existing beliefs — documents how political and ideological commitments can override factual knowledge. The deliberate public ignoring of scientific consensus on climate change, vaccine safety, and evolution by some political actors and communities is not merely ignorance in the descriptive sense but the active exercise of the capacity to ignore — to receive and decide not to act on information that challenges a preferred position.
Speaker B: Yes. And the computing use of ignore — to receive a signal, event, or error and deliberately not process it — is one of the more technically significant in software engineering and operating system design. In Unix-like operating systems, processes can choose to ignore specific signals (such as the SIGTERM signal requesting graceful shutdown) rather than handling them. Error handling in programming involves explicit decisions about which errors should be caught and handled, which should be propagated upward, and which should be ignored. The deliberate ignoring of some error conditions — because they are expected, benign, or irrelevant to the task — is a routine design decision in robust software engineering.
Speaker A: Now, stonewalling and the silent treatment.
Speaker B: Yes. The silent treatment — the deliberate ignoring of a person in a social or intimate relationship as a form of emotional control or punishment — is one of the most studied in relationship psychology. Research by John Gottman identifies stonewalling (the withdrawal of communication) as one of the four horsemen of relationship breakdown, alongside contempt, criticism, and defensiveness. The deliberate ignoring that constitutes stonewalling is particularly damaging because it removes the partner's ability to engage, respond, or repair — it is a form of emotional withdrawal that denies the ignored person any interaction through which the situation could be addressed. Gottman's research shows that stonewalling is one of the strongest predictors of relationship dissolution.
Speaker A: Right. And the paradox of ignore in news media and journalism — the decision about what not to cover — is one of the most consequential in media studies. Agenda-setting theory, developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, argues that the issues that the media cover become the issues that the public considers important, and that the issues the media ignore disappear from public consciousness. The editorial decision to ignore a story is not merely a neutral absence of coverage but an active shaping of public awareness — what is not covered ceases to exist in the sphere of public attention. This makes the decision to ignore a form of power equivalent in consequence to the decision to cover.
Speaker B: Common note — ignore, overlook, disregard, neglect, and dismiss describe related ways of not attending to something. Overlook suggests missing something without intention. Disregard implies rejecting something's claim on one's attention. Neglect implies a failure to give appropriate care or attention. Dismiss implies actively rejecting the relevance or importance of something. Ignore is the most neutral and specific — it implies deliberate, chosen non-attention to something that is present and perceivable, without specifying the reason or the emotional tone of the choice.
Speaker A: The deliberate choice not to attend — the active decision to treat something as if it were not there. That is to ignore, and that is very different from simply not seeing.
Speaker B: Today's word is ignore. In prompting, it's a Williams Cyberball ostracism social exclusion pain neural pathways belonging, ignoramus grand jury medieval Latin play Ruggle 1615 foolish lawyer, motivated reasoning scientific consensus climate vaccine evolution political ideological, Unix SIGTERM signal process error handling software deliberate design, and Gottman stonewalling silent treatment four horsemen relationship dissolution word — for ostracism psychology tools, ignoramus legal history guides, motivated reasoning scientific denial platforms, Unix signal ignore computing tools, and Gottman stonewalling relationship guides.
Speaker A: Ignore spans Williams Cyberball ostracism anonymous strangers virtual meaningless pain neural physical pathways belonging self-esteem control brief measurable clinical psychology, grand jury medieval ignoramus we do not know back indictment insufficient Ruggle 1615 James I pompous incompetent lawyer general term stupidity legal vocabulary, motivated reasoning confirm pre-existing political ideological override factual knowledge public deliberate active capacity receive decide not act science communication, Unix SIGTERM signal process choose deliberately not handle catch propagate routine design decision software engineering operating system, and Gottman stonewalling withdrawal communication four horsemen contempt criticism defensiveness denial engage repair emotional control research dissolution — tools built around it serve social psychologists, legal historians, science communicators, software engineers, and relationship researchers.
Speaker B: Exactly. Watch this social psychology brief.
Speaker B: Build a Next.js Cyberball ostracism and the pain of being ignored for a social psychologist — documenting Williams's Cyberball paradigm and the neural pain of ostracism, reviewing the psychological effects of social exclusion, generating an ostracism analysis framework, and producing a social exclusion ostracism psychology guide.
Speaker A: Cyberball ostracism documented with neural pain mechanism and belonging effects so social psychologists explain both the specific experimental finding — anonymous, meaningless virtual exclusion produces real psychological pain — and what this reveals about the fundamental human need for social inclusion and why the deliberate decision to ignore someone has genuine psychological consequences.
Speaker B: Right. Now history.
Speaker B: Design a Django ignoramus and the legal history of ignore for a legal historian — documenting the grand jury ignoramus practice and Ruggle's play, reviewing how the legal formula became a term for foolishness, generating a legal vocabulary evolution framework, and producing an ignoramus legal history guide.
Speaker A: Ignoramus legal history documented with grand jury practice and Ruggle theatrical evolution so legal historians explain the specific cultural mechanism — a satirical play that used a legal formula as a character name — that transformed a precise procedural term into a general insult, and what this transformation reveals about the relationship between legal vocabulary and popular language.
Speaker B: Now science communication.
Speaker B: Create a Svelte motivated reasoning and ignoring scientific consensus for a science communicator — documenting motivated reasoning and its application to scientific denial, reviewing how political and ideological commitments lead to deliberate ignoring of evidence, generating a motivated reasoning science communication framework, and producing a scientific denial motivated reasoning guide.
Speaker A: Motivated reasoning documented with scientific denial mechanism and ideological override analysis so science communicators explain both the specific cognitive process — information is processed to confirm rather than evaluate pre-existing beliefs — and why this means that more information alone does not correct scientific denial, because the problem is not ignorance but the active exercise of the capacity to ignore.
Speaker B: Now relationships.
Speaker B: Build a Vue Gottman stonewalling and the silent treatment for a relationship psychologist — documenting Gottman's four horsemen and stonewalling research, reviewing why deliberate ignoring is particularly damaging in intimate relationships, generating a stonewalling relationship analysis framework, and producing a Gottman stonewalling relationship guide.
Speaker A: Stonewalling documented with four horsemen framework and repair-denial mechanism so relationship psychologists explain both why Gottman identifies stonewalling as among the most predictive of dissolution — it removes the partner's ability to engage or repair — and what interventions are available when one partner has chosen the silent treatment as a default conflict response.
Speaker B: Last one.
Speaker B: Develop a React Native media agenda-setting and ignoring stories for a media researcher — documenting McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting theory and the power of editorial ignoring, reviewing how what media choose not to cover shapes public awareness, generating a media agenda-setting framework, and producing a media agenda-setting guide.
Speaker A: So ignore in prompts spans social psychology, legal history, science communication, relationship psychology, and media research — the deliberate-non-attention word serving every domain from Cyberball ostracism to editorial agenda-setting.
Speaker B: Exactly. The active choice not to attend — which is very different from simply not seeing. Build tools that understand why the decision to ignore is always a form of power.
Ignore — meaning in Arabic & definition More I courses GL Dictionary