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Ingenuous vs Puerile - What's the difference?

ingenuous | puerile |

As adjectives the difference between ingenuous and puerile

is that ingenuous is naive and trusting while puerile is characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer: puellile.

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.

    puerile

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; confer : puellile.
  • Childish; trifling; silly.
  • * (rfdate) De Quincey:
    • The French have been notorious through generations for their puerile affectation of Roman forms, models, and historic precedents.
  • * 1927 , , page 79:
    • From the table he had received the gout; from the alcove a tendency to convulsions; from the grandeeship a pride so vast and puerile that he seldom heard anything that was said to him and talked to the ceiling in a perpetual monologue; from the exile, oceans of boredom, a boredom so persuasive that it was like pain,—he woke up with it and spent the day with it, and it sat by his bed all night watching his sleep.
  • * '>citation

    • Synonyms

    * (childish): juvenile, silly, trifling,

    Derived terms

    * puerilism * puerility

    See also

    * boyish * yobbish * youthful ----