nocent
Americanadjective
-
harmful; injurious.
nocent chemical waste and other toxins.
-
guilty; not innocent.
Etymology
Origin of nocent
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Latin nocent-, stem of nocēns, present participle of nocēre “to harm, injure”; see -ent
Vocabulary lists containing nocent
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.
Indeed, such are the human mind's defenses that the guilty often feel in nocent.
From Time Magazine Archive
"It will clearly appear," he said, "where the guilt will lie if innocent persons should come to suffer with the nocent."
From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 by Rossiter Johnson
He divides his treatise into "bad and nocent books; bad books but not nocent; books not bad, but nocent; books neither bad nor nocent."
From Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 2 by Isaac Disraeli
While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent charmes.
From Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England by Walter W. Greg
If the proportions of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent persons were deprived of their property.
From The Land-War In Ireland (1870) A History For The Times by James Godkin
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.
