INGENUOUS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Ingenuous

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/ɪndʒˈɛnjuəs/ Listen

adjective

Ingenuous adj.

1.

Of honorable extraction; freeborn; noble; as, ingenuous blood of birth.

2.

Noble; generous; magnanimous; honorable; upright; high-minded; as, an ingenuous ardor or zeal. "If an ingenuous detestation of falsehood be but carefully and early instilled, that is the true and genuine method to obviate dishonesty."

3.

Free from reserve, disguise, equivocation, or dissimulation; open; frank; as, an ingenuous man; an ingenuous declaration, confession, etc. "Sensible in myself... what a burden it is for me, who would be ingenuous, to be loaded with courtesies which he hath not the least hope to requite or deserve."

4.

Ingenious. (Obs.) Note: (Formerly) printers did not discriminate between... ingenuous and ingenious, and these words were used or rather printed interchangeably almost to the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Synonyms: Open; frank; unreserved; artless; plain; sincere; candid; fair; noble; generous. Ingenuous, Open, Frank. One who is open speaks out at once what is uppermost in his mind; one who is frank does it from a natural boldness, or dislike of self-restraint; one who is ingenuous is actuated by a native simplicity and artlessness, which make him willing to confess faults, and make known his sentiments without reserve. See Candid.

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Etymology of 'Ingenuous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ingenuous" Quotes from Famous Books

... spy, usurer, and astrologer, vile on two sides, sublime on the third; and Rochester, the unique Rochester, absurd and clever, refined and crapulous, always cursing, always in love, and always tipsy, as he himself boasted to Bishop Burnet—wretched poet and gallant gentleman, vicious and ingenuous, staking his head and indifferent whether he wins the game provided it amuses him—in a word, capable of everything, of ruse and recklessness, calculation and folly, villainy and generosity; and the morose Carr, of whom history describes but one trait, ...

— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... by our daughters and wives, in a series of exquisite illustrations. Every body has La Fontaine by heart, thanks to the pencil of Granville, which requires neither grammar nor dictionary to aid its interpretations; and even Defoe—even the unparalleled Robinson Crusoe—is devoured by our ingenuous youth in cuts ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... doubt not but that ingenuous Authour would easily have recanted if hee had beene but acquainted with those experiences which men of latter times have found out, for the confirmation of ...

— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins

... easy to observe, that the above entirely refers to the predestinarians of the Dissenting party; whatever may be said of them, it must be acknowledged, they act a far more honest and ingenuous part than the predestinarians who are Ministers of the established Church. As Dissenting Ministers are maintained by the voluntary contributions of their hearers, their hearers are at liberty to withdraw their assistance; but then Ministers, who obtain parishes and lectureships, ...

— A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism • Thomas Taylor

... supper, Nickie and the ingenuous Millie loitered by the open kitchen window, and Nickie saw and heard things of no little interest to him professionally. Farmer Dickson and three neighbours were comparing bottles of Dr. Crip's ...

— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

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