Noun

(en noun)

Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.

* {{quote-book

, year=1907 , title=(The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) , author=Robert W. Service , chapter=(The Cremation of Sam McGee) , passage=Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."}}

(dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.

* 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):

A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.

A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene.

* 1988 , Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu :

As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.

* 2002 , in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence'', ''The Boy in the Bush , edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:

If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —

* 2004 , Katherine V. W. Stone, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation , page 280:

We see the distinction at work when victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks are treated more generously than derelicts and drug addicts.