ingenuous — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Naive and trusting.

2. Demonstrating childlike simplicity.

   Examples

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   "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.

   Examples

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   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.

   Examples

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   [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.

Adjective

1. characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious

   Synonyms

   artless

   Antonyms

   disingenuous

   Examples

   an ingenuous admission of responsibility

2. lacking in sophistication or worldliness

   Synonyms

   innocent

   Examples

   a child's innocent stare

   his ingenuous explanation that he would not have burned the church if he had not thought the bishop was in it