Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having no ulterior motives; straightforward.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not having any underhand design; sincere; upright; artless; having no artful or fraudulent purpose.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having no artful, ulterior, or fraudulent purpose; sincere; artless; simple.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having no artful, ulterior, or fraudulent purpose; sincere; artless; simple.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ designing

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Examples

  • "And have you never bethought you of seeking a wife, Pathfinder, to share your fortunes?" inquired the girl, with the directness and simplicity that the pure of heart and the undesigning are the most apt to manifest, and with that feeling of affection which is inbred in her sex.

    Pathfinder; or, the inland sea James Fenimore Cooper 1820

  • The very idea of Sir Sedley was horror to her; she felt guilty to have involved herself in an intercourse so fertile of danger; she thought over, with severest repentance, her short, but unjustifiable deviation from that transparent openness, and undesigning plainness of conduct, which her disposition as much as her education ought to have rendered unchangeable.

    Camilla 2008

  • Camilla, presently descending, looked away from Mrs. Arlbery; but, unsuspicious as she was undesigning, thanked the Baronet for his message, and told him she had already repented her solitary plan.

    Camilla 2008

  • Camilla alone escaped the contagion; for while too innocent, too undesigning, wilfully to excite displeasure, she was too gay and too light-hearted to admit apprehension without cause.

    Camilla 2008

  • Cecilia, however, to quitting the house, determined not to visit it again very speedily; for she was extremely disgusted with Lady Margaret, though she suspected no particular motives of enmity, against which she was guarded alike by her own unsuspicious innocence, and by an high esteem of Mr Monckton, which she firmly believed he returned with equal honesty of undesigning friendship.

    Cecilia 2008

  • The most timid female delicacy was not more scrupulous, than the manly honour of Edgar to avoid this species of misapprehension; and though perfectly confident his behaviour had been as irreproachable as it was undesigning, the least idea of any self-delusion on the part of Indiana, seemed a call upon his integrity for the most unequivocal manifestation of his intentions.

    Camilla 2008

  • To preserve, therefore, the appearance of an undesigning friend of the house, he had forced himself to refrain, for two days, from any visit to the rectory, whither he was repairing, when thus, unlooked and unwished for, he surprized Camilla at the Grove.

    Camilla 2008

  • Cecilia, from recollecting the strange situations in which she had lately been seen by him, blushed extremely when she first met his eyes; but finding him gay and easy, general in his conversation, and undesigning in his looks, she soon recovered from her embarrassment, and passed the rest of the day without restraint or uneasiness.

    Cecilia 2008

  • Forgetful of all other things in the ecstasy of the moment, his face flushed and his eyes sparkling with delight, heedless of the weight of the great banner he carried, and mindful only of its flashing in the sun and rustling in the summer breeze, on he went, proud, happy, elated past all telling: — the only light – hearted, undesigning creature, in the whole assembly.

    Barnaby Rudge 2007

  • It seemed to me that his off – hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to give him pleasure.

    Bleak House 2007

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