ingenuous

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   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.

2. 2
   adj

   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.

3. 3
   adj

   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.

4. 4
   adj

   characterized by an inability to mask your feelings

5. 5
   adj

   lacking in sophistication or worldliness

6. 6
   adj

   Naive and trusting.

7. 7
   adj

   Unable to mask one's feelings.

Etymology

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