Christopher Rawson
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Ingenuous is most often used to describe someone who has a childlike innocence and openness. It should not be confused with ingenious, which typically describes someone who is unusually inventive or clever, or something made or done in an especially original or clever way. The words look very much alike, but sound different: remember that ingenuous sounds like its linguistic relation genuine, while ingenious sounds like genius—despite the fact that there is no etymological connection between those two. For more on this pair, read on.
Examples of ingenuous in a Sentence
Hayley Maitland, Vogue, 12 Feb. 2025
The actors effortlessly entwine the droll and the ingenuous, but as Ulman juggles more characters and more plot angles than in her first movie, there isn’t necessarily more payoff.
—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
There’s something soft about the play, a little ingenuous and underbrewed.
—Sara Holdren, Vulture, 16 Apr. 2024
And while some delusions of the self are less opportunistic and others feel more ingenuous, the tilt of reality to suit ourselves is nonetheless slippery.
—Megan O’Grady, New York Times, 12 Nov. 2020
All of this feels rather random, rather personal, rather ingenuous.
—New York Times, 5 Nov. 2021
Jennifer Johnson Cano’s mezzo-soprano was smoothly plangent as Emilia; the tenor Pene Pati was a sweetly ingenuous Cassio.
—New York Times, 22 May 2022
The underdog pick is Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun), an ingenuous arriviste who, long-limbed and blunder-prone, provides much of the show’s comic relief.
—Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 1 Nov. 2021
Heathcliff, of course, is the prime example, growing from an ingenuous child into a glowering adult who spins all the considerable evil ever done to him — much of it based on race and class — into justification for his long game of retribution.
—Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times, 18 Oct. 2022
Cite this Entry
“Ingenuous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ingenuous. Accessed 14 Mar. 2025.
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