Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of insincerity
Explanation
When you're not telling the whole truth, you're demonstrating the quality of insincerity. You might detect a politician's insincerity during a speech, and decide to vote for his opponent, who seems more honest. If you can't stand insincerity, you'll bristle when someone compliments your haircut in a false, overly enthusiastic way — you can tell they're not being forthright with you. Sincerity, the complete absence of any pretense, comes from the Latin sincerus, "whole, clean, or pure," or "genuine." Insincerity adds the "not" prefix in-, resulting in a meaning of "not genuine."
Vocabulary lists containing insincerity
Ten Most Relevant Words: The Great Gatsby, Chapter 1
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myPerspectives 6.4
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Module 2: Assessed Vocabulary Guide
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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.
See Examples For:
As the interview progressed, Vance’s vaunted media savvy quickly morphed into something far more grating: a combination of condescension and profound insincerity.
From Salon ● Jun. 17, 2026
The film’s own director, however, is a sharp and clever social critic who investigates insincerity.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2025
For historians, it is also a rare glimpse at the darks arts of diplomacy in action: secrecy, smiling insincerity and disinformation were evidently as current then as they are today.
From BBC ● Nov. 26, 2022
Players can smell insincerity like a shark seeking its prey.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 9, 2022
I found this hardly comforting, and wondered if there was not some virtue in the quality of insincerity.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
Inside parliament and out, he was a flamboyant self-advertiser who dripped superlatives, ornate insincerities and exotic effulgence.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2013
Whatever his insincerities turn out to be, this won't be one of them.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 29, 2010
The speech made listening newspapermen, jaded with the stale insincerities of convention orators, look at each other: here was something different.
From Time Magazine Archive
Having delivered himself of various polite insincerities, and having told Mrs. Hubbard that he would order coffee to be brought to her, Poirot was able to take his leave accompanied by his two friends.
From "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie
Pepys, with utter unconsciousness, is sincere even in his insincerities.
From Among Famous Books by John Kelman
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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.
