disingenuous
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of disingenuous
Explanation
Use the adjective disingenuous to describe behavior that's not totally honest or sincere. It's disingenuous when people pretend to know less about something than they really do. Disingenuous combines dis-, meaning "not," with ingenuous (from the Latin gen-, meaning "born") which was originally used to distinguish free-born Romans from slaves, and later came to mean "honest" or "straightforward." So disingenuous means "dishonest." Ingenuous is less common now than disingenuous, but we still use it for someone who is sincere to the point of naiveté. A good synonym is insincere.
Vocabulary lists containing disingenuous
100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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Grade 12, List 4
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This Week in Words: March 30–April 5, 2019
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"The charitable response would be to say that it sounded disingenuous," says Farzana Sheikh, associate fellow at Chatham House.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Sure, it was another grift, as well as fatalistic and totally disingenuous.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
He also took aim at what he called disingenuous industry rhetoric that cast any caution around AI as unpatriotic.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
It would feel disingenuous to make art that’s unattainable to the very community who inspires it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
I was still hugging the boy, so he couldn't see the disingenuous look on my youthful face.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
