Ingenuous: meaning, example and synonyms
Ingenuousadj. Innocent and unsuspecting; showing childlike openness and trust.
Example
The young narrator's ingenuous account of the adults' quarrels lets readers grasp tensions that he himself does not understand.
- Part of speech
- adjective
- Synonyms
- naive, innocent, artless, guileless
- Antonyms
- sly, cunning, artful, worldly
- Memory tip
- Ingenuous = genuinely innocent; add dis- and the innocence is an act.
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Check yourself: Ingenuous in context
The child's ______ question about why the guests never visited anymore exposed the family quarrel that the adults had carefully avoided mentioning.
Answer: ingenuous. A child innocently asking what adults avoid is artless openness. Imperious, erratic and ineffectual don't fit a question that exposed the quarrel.
Fresh from her rural village, the novel's heroine is so ______ that she believes every flattering word from the city's suitors, never suspecting their motives.
Answer: ingenuous. Believing every flatterer without suspicion is naive trust. Banal, imperious and erratic don't describe unsuspecting innocence.