ingenue
noun
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Although Becky Sharp, the ambitious heroine of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel Vanity Fair, is not usually thought of as innocent or naive, the author used ingenue to describe her as having those qualities. Thackeray's use was attributive: "When attacked sometimes, Becky had a knack of adopting a demure ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous." The word ingenue typically refers to someone who is innocent to the ways of the world, so you probably won't be too surprised to learn that it shares an ancestor—Latin ingenuus—with ingenuous, a word meaning "showing innocent or childlike simplicity and candidness." More directly, our ingenue comes from French ingénue, the feminine form of ingénu, meaning "ingenuous."
Examples of ingenue in a Sentence
Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 19 Nov. 2024
It’s been one of the difficult things as a young woman in Hollywood that was often [being] put in the ingenue category.
—Lexy Perez, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Oct. 2024
Take Jean Simmons — the original one — who’d burst onto the scene as an ingenue in the postwar era, starring in classics like Guys and Dolls and Spartacus.
—Nate Jones, Vulture, 9 Oct. 2024
In swinging 1960s London, when films featured fresh mini-skirted ingenues such as Julie Christie and Redgrave, Smith stood apart.
—Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for ingenue 
Dictionary Entries Near ingenue
Cite this Entry
“Ingenue.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ingenue. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.
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ingenue
noun
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