ingenuous

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
10
Words With Friends
15
Letters
9
Pronunciation
/ɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/

Definition of ingenuous

5 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. Naive and trusting.
See all 5 definitions

adj

  1. Naive and trusting.
  2. Demonstrating childlike simplicity.
    “"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.”
  3. Unsophisticated; clumsy or obvious.
    “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.”
    “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.”
  4. Unable to mask one's feelings.
  5. Straightforward, candid, open, frank.
    “[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.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

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

Anagrams of ingenuous

1 play · some not in Scrabble

Words you can make from ingenuous

128 playable · top: ENGINOUS (9 pts)

Best play enginous 9 points

7-letter words

4 words

6-letter words

12 words

5-letter words

18 words

4-letter words

40 words

3-letter words

36 words

2-letter words

17 words

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