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Ingenuous vs Disingenuous - What's the difference?

ingenuous | disingenuous | Antonyms |

Disingenuous is an antonym of ingenuous.


As adjectives the difference between ingenuous and disingenuous

is that ingenuous is naive and trusting while disingenuous is not noble; unbecoming true honor or dignity; mean; unworthy; fake or deceptive.

ingenuous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Naive and trusting.
  • Demonstrating childlike simplicity.
  • * 1919 ,
    "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.
  • Unsophisticated; simple.
  • Unable to mask one's feelings.
  • Straightforward, candid, open, and frank.

    • Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * disingenuous

    Usage notes

    Do not confuse with ingenious.

    disingenuous

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not noble; unbecoming true honor or dignity; mean; unworthy; fake or deceptive.
  • Not ingenuous; not frank or open; uncandid; unworthily or meanly artful.
  • * 1726 , , The Poems of Alexander Pope: The Odyssey of Homer. Books XIII-XXIV , edited by Maynard Mack, Methuen, 1969, volume 10, page 378:
    I am not so vain as to think these Remarks free from faults, nor so disingenuous as not to confess them:
  • Assuming a pose of naivete to make a point or for deception.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter , title=The British Longitude Act Reconsidered , volume=100, issue=2, page=87 , magazine= citation , passage=But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.}}

    • Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "disingenuous" is often applied: attempt, argument, statement, conduct, people, excuse, question, assertion.

    Derived terms

    * disingenuously * disingenuousness

    External links

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