Word of the Day Archive
Friday June 10, 2005
ingenuous \in-JEN-yoo-uhs\ , adjective:
1. Demonstrating childlike simplicity; innocent; naive.
2. Free from reserve, restraint, or guile; open; frank.
3. [Obsolete] Noble; honorable.
It's a bit ingenuous to offer information to a reporter with a notebook in her hand and then expect not to be quoted.
-- Sadie Mah, "Quoting an interviewee", Jakarta Post, September 17, 1999
Not like World War I, where soldiers and their sweethearts courted to the strains of "Lili Marlene," and the prevailing sense of doom was misted over with ingenuous devotion to both girl and country.
-- Jayne Blanchard, "War romance passionate in 'Wedding'", Washington Time, August 13, 2004
It still has a cockeyed charm, an ingenuous optimism which, even in these dangerous times, comforts you like a lovable old teddy bear.
-- "Art beat", The Press (Canterbury, New Zealand), November 29, 2003
Benson later wrote in his diary: "... a simpler, more ingenuous, more unaffected, more genuinely interested boy, I never saw."
-- Peter Firstbrook, Lost on Everest
Ingenuous comes from Latin ingenuus, "honest, freeborn," from in-, "in" + gignere, "to beget; to produce."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for ingenuous
