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.
Still, when confronted with his own words by Senate Democrats, he denied it all with the insincerity of the cheating narrator of Shaggy and RikRok's 2000 hit song.
From Salon • Jan. 31, 2025
It reeks — not of fish, but of insincerity.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 26, 2023
But the most villainous entity they encounter is a duplicitous schemer played with oleaginous insincerity by Hugh Grant.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 28, 2023
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
Lord Asriel couldn’t help enjoying her barefaced insincerity.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
Definitions 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.
