ingenuous

CEFRC2

/ɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

Examples

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

In context

"Do you mean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?" "Of course not." "On your word of honour?" I don't know why I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me.
The apparent contradictions in his behaviour should therefore be discounted as ingenuous attempts to extricate himself from the consequences of an intellectual position which he once adopted but was never really his by intimate conviction.
[…] Semitic agitation by stating 'the truth' in terms of facts and figures, the practice of self-criticism represented a well-intended but ingenuous effort to defend Jewry against anti-Semitism.

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

"Do you mean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?" "Of course not." "On your word of honour?" I don't know why I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me.
1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “ch. 12”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
The apparent contradictions in his behaviour should therefore be discounted as ingenuous attempts to extricate himself from the consequences of an intellectual position which he once adopted but was never really his by intimate conviction.
1965, New Left Review, page 86
[…] Semitic agitation by stating 'the truth' in terms of facts and figures, the practice of self-criticism represented a well-intended but ingenuous effort to defend Jewry against anti-Semitism.
1978, G. Lebzelter, Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918–1939, page 150
There was nothing more I dared say. My ingenuous attempts to lie my way out of trouble had only served to get me in deeper and deeper.
2012, Hester Rowan, The Linden Tree
[H]is Grace’s Man at his club, in company doubtless with other Men of equal social rank, talks over his master’s character and affairs with the ingenuous truthfulness which befits gentlemen who are met together in confidence.
1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 37, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

Learned borrowing from Latin ingenuus (“of noble character, frank”). Doublet of ingenu.