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- Dictionaryin·gen·u·ous/inˈjenyəwəs/
adjective
- 1. (of a person or action) innocent and unsuspecting: "he eyed her with wide, ingenuous eyes"
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Ingenuous means showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness, or lacking craft or subtlety. It is often confused with ingenious, which means unusually inventive or clever. Learn more about the word history, synonyms, examples, and related articles.
Ingenuous means honest, sincere, and trusting, sometimes in a way that seems silly. Learn how to use this formal adjective with examples from the Cambridge English Corpus and translations in different languages.
adjective. characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious. “an ingenuous admission of responsibility” synonyms: artless. candid, heart-to-heart, open. openly straightforward and direct without reserve or secretiveness. undistorted. without alteration or misrepresentation. sincere. open and genuine; not deceitful. naif, naive.
Ingenious means clever or cleverly inventive or resourceful. Ingenuous means sincere or, perhaps more commonly, naive or innocent. Careful: ingenious sounds like genius (the two are often used in the same contexts and even come from the same root) but it’s not spelled ingenius.
Learn the meaning, synonyms, pronunciation, and usage of the adjective 'ingenuous', which means innocent, trusting, and honest. See examples of 'ingenuous' in sentences and compare it with 'ingenious'.
Ingenuous means honest, sincere, and trusting, sometimes in a way that seems silly. Learn how to use this formal adjective with examples and translations in different languages.
adj. 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness; innocent or naive: I'm not so ingenuous as to believe everything he says. See Synonyms at naive. 2. Straightforward or frank; candid: "I must be so ingenuous as to own that the accounts are not so certain as to the exact time and place of his birth" (Memoir of Martinus Scriblerus).
