Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness; artless.
- adj. Openly straightforward or frank; candid. See Synonyms at naive.
- adj. Obsolete Ingenious.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Freeborn; of honorable extraction.
- Generous; noble: as, an ingenuous ardor or zeal.
- Free from restraint or reserve; frank; open; candid: used of persons or things: as, an ingenuous mind; an ingenuous confession.
- Same as ingenious.
- Synonyms Frank, Naïve, etc. (see candid); unreserved, artless, guileless, straightforward, truthful.
Wiktionary
- adj. Naive and trusting.
- adj. Demonstrating childlike simplicity.
- adj. Unsophisticated; simple.
- adj. Unable to mask one's feelings.
- adj. Straightforward, candid, open, and frank.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of honorable extraction; freeborn; noble.
- adj. Noble; generous; magnanimous; honorable; upright; high-minded.
- adj. Free from reserve, disguise, equivocation, or dissimulation; open; frank.
- adj. obsolete Ingenious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious
- adj. lacking in sophistication or worldliness
Etymologies
- From Latin ingenuus ("of noble character, frank") (Wiktionary)
- Latin ingenuus, honest, freeborn; see genə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Criminals on trains often adopted what the researchers described as ingenuous tactics in their activities.”
“George Kembel, head of the Stanford d. school, calls the ingenuous device a $19,975 cost-savings.”
“It is Jan who is "regurgitating" the kind of ingenuous drivel that a million half-arsed career pundits are lining up to declare on CH4 news and Newsnight.”
On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...
“You needn't say 'ingenuous' isn't a real word, because it is.”
“If to the day of his death, after mortal disenchantments, the impression he first produced always evoked the word "ingenuous," those to whom his face was familiar can easily imagine what it must have been when it still had the light of youth.”
“He might alter the word to "ingenuous" or "ingenious," either would be finely sarcastic, but then -- there was his foreman, who would detect it!”
“Nowhere have the sweet and amiable virtues, such as ingenuous condescension, indulgent humanity, and the respectable and severe virtues, such as disinterestedness and self-control which subject our movements to the requirements of the dignity of our nature, been better understood or interpreted.”
“{4} His features displayed a good deal of serene pride, self-respect, fortitude, a kind of ingenuous sensuality, and something of instinctive wisdom, without any sharpness of intellect.”
“I'm right ; ) And the satire not sarcasm) was meant to be ingenuous, which is why I clearly labeled it that.”
“Society in the 18th Century_, p. 207.)] [Footnote 304: _Lockhart_, Vol. III, p. 197.] [Footnote 305: The reader will at once recall the ingenuous remark of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ingenuous’.
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
voracious, indiscriminate, eminent, steeped, replete, abound, technology, prognosticate, automaton, matron, paradox, realm and 297 more...
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501
Classic
aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august, banal, boisterous, dulcet, epitome, impudent, insolent, mellifluous and 401 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Rlist
voracious, indiscriminate, steeped, replete, eminent, prognosticate, abound, automaton, paradoxical, chronoloigical, annal, amateur and 81 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 215 more...
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[Open] Contranyms
ingenuous, bill, bound, cleave, clip, dust, fast, handicap, oversight, rent, screen
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to memorize
words i need to memorize
aberrant, abscond, advocate, aggrandize, amalgamate, ambiguous, ambrosial, anomalous, antediluvian, antipathy, arbitrate, assuage and 163 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ingenuous.
Dan337 Just to further muddy the waters, “ingenuous” is (according to, e.g., the American Heritage Dictionary,) also an obsolete form of “ingenious” (technically making the former a contranym). I love English. Jan 1, 2011
rolig John66bessa, you are confusing two different words. Ingenious means "clever, showing great intelligence or insight." It easy to confuse this with ingenuous because of the noun ingenuity, which does not mean the quality of being ingenuous (that's ingenuousness), but the quality of being clever and inventive (and thus is closer in its meaning to "ingenious").
Ingenuous has nothing to do with ingenuity, though as you suggest, it is related to the idea of being "genuine". Ingenuous people are by nature genuine, in that they do not know how to deceive or be other than they are. "Ingenuous" is a close synonym of "naive". Ingenuous people are honest, but not because they choose to be; it is simply their nature to be. They have not yet learned how to dissemble or lie. But worldly people, i.e. people who understand the way world works and who are not ingenuous, may also be genuine: they may be forthright and honest, but in this case, it is a conscious decision.
We say that someone is disingenuous when they pretend to be ingenuous, i.e. they pretend to know less than they actually do, to be more naive than they actually are. They are deceptive, but in the particular way of pretending to be innocent or ignorant of something.
Curiously, the words genius, ingenious, ingenuity, ingenuous, and genuine are all related in that they share the same Latin root -gen- ("relating to birth"), but they are not derived from or based on one another. May 10, 2009
john66bessa This word is based on "genuine," but is convoluted, as are the other words based on "genuine," such as "disingenuous." I feel that "ingenious" means optionally honest. An ingenious person is honest only if he derive some personal benefit from being genuine, such as to gain the confidence of others, and then lies under slightly different circumstances to the same purpose, to reap the benefits of having gained that confidence. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Empathy_Model May 9, 2009
tonya I tend to not notice the first "u" and understand ingenious. Aug 8, 2008