Sample Sentences for
ingenuous
(editor-reviewed)

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    But then the Prosecutor sprang to his feet and, draping his gown round him, said he was amazed at his friend's ingenuousness in failing to see that between these two elements of the case there was a vital link.  (source)
    ingenuousness = lack of sophistication
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    It was impossible to determine whether this question was ingenuous or malicious.  (source)
    ingenuous = innocent (direct and sincere)
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    With ingenuous frankness he spoke of what a wicked, ill-disciplined boy he had been, and impulsively drew up his cuff to exhibit upon his wrist the scar from a saber cut which he had received in a duel outside of Paris when he was nineteen.  (source)
    ingenuous = unsophisticated directness (not trying to present events in a manner that made him look better)
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    George Tesman is really an ingenuous creature,  (source)
    ingenuous = lacking in sophistication or worldliness
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    And what was charming in the blond ingenuousness of Aron became suspicious and unpleasant in the dark-faced, slit-eyed Cal.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    I have seen it with these eyes, and I ingenuously confess...  (source)
    ingenuously = candidly (in a straightforward manner without attempt to posture or put things in the best light for me)
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    Although he'd played ingenuous, he'd known right away what the man was getting at.†  (source)
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    He had possessed so few women of such ingenuousness.†  (source)
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    "Well now, no, I haven't," confessed Matthew ingenuously.†  (source)
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    I'd intended to ask her about Ian's dishonesty and how she felt when she learned she'd been left off the Everest permit, but she was so cheerful and ingenuous that I didn't have the stomach for it.†  (source)
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    The type of boy for whom she really cared and was always seeking was one who could sweep away all such psuedo-ingenuousness and superiorities in her and force her, even against herself, to yield to him.†  (source)
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    Indeed the horror of it was how central we were, how ingenuously and not we comprised the larger processes, feeding ourselves and one another to the all-consuming engine of the war.†  (source)
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    "But why do you want to keep the embryo below par?" asked an ingenuous student.†  (source)
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