INGENUOUSNESS

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ingenuousness mean? 

• INGENUOUSNESS (noun)
  The noun INGENUOUSNESS has 2 senses:

1. the quality of innocent naivete

2. openly straightforward or frank

  Familiarity information: INGENUOUSNESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INGENUOUSNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of innocent naivete

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

artlessness; ingenuousness; innocence; naturalness

Hypernyms ("ingenuousness" is a kind of...):

naiveness; naivete; naivety (lack of sophistication or worldliness)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ingenuousness"):

innocency (an innocent quality or thing or act)

Derivation:

ingenuous (lacking in sophistication or worldliness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Openly straightforward or frank

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("ingenuousness" is a kind of...):

candidness; candor; candour; directness; forthrightness; frankness (the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ingenuousness"):

artlessness (ingenuousness by virtue of being free from artful deceit)

Antonym:

disingenuousness (the quality of being disingenuous and lacking candor)

Derivation:

ingenuous (characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious)

 Context examples 

Harriet bore the intelligence very well—blaming nobody—and in every thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to her friend.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I should not have mentioned the subject, though very anxious to know her sentiments; but I had not been in the room five minutes before she began introducing it with all that openness of heart, and sweet peculiarity of manner, that spirit and ingenuousness which are so much a part of herself.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Edmund's first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his judgment in it very doubtful.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)