innocent

IN-uh-suhnt/ˈɪnəsənt/

10 meanings of innocent

1
adjective
Free from guilt, sin, or moral wrongdoing.
Many believed he was morally innocent, whatever the law decided.
She kept an innocent conscience throughout the long ordeal.
Similarblameless, guiltless, pure, sinless, virtuous
Oppositeguilty, sinful, wicked, culpable
Note
The moral sense, carried by a word whose Latin first meant "harmless" and only later "guiltless": innocēns, from in- ("not") and nocēns, "hurting", from noceō ("to hurt"). English also has nocent, "harmful; guilty", so innocent is its plain negative. The borrowing pushed out Old English unscyldig. Shakespeare's "weak, poor, innocent lamb" in Macbeth shows the sacrificial overtone of purity the word can carry.
2
adjective
Not guilty in law of a crime or other wrongful act.
After new evidence emerged, the jury declared the defendant innocent.
He maintained he was innocent of all charges throughout the trial.
Similarguiltless, blameless
Oppositeguilty, culpable
3
adjective
Done or said with no intention of wrongdoing, whether by accident or in good faith.
Her remark was entirely innocent and meant no offense.
The breach was innocent, arising from a genuine misunderstanding.
Similarharmless, innocuous, inoffensive, unintentional, accidental
Oppositemalicious, deliberate, intentional
4
adjective
Naive and artless; lacking guile or worldly experience.
His innocent enthusiasm charmed the jaded crowd.
She was too innocent to notice the salesman's tricks.
Similarnaive, artless, guileless, ingenuous, unworldly
Oppositeworldly, cynical, sophisticated, knowing
5
nouncountable
A person free from guilt or wrongdoing, especially a young child.
The bombing killed dozens of innocents who had nothing to do with the conflict.
She was an innocent, wholly unprepared for the cruelty she would face.
Similarnaif
Note
Most familiar in the plural. The Slaughter of the Innocents, the massacre of children in the New Testament, explains the noun's lean toward the very young. An innocent can also be someone untouched by experience. Jennifer Justice wrote in 1991 of the impossible balance between being "innocents and whores", a use in which the noun carries both guiltlessness and the naive meaning.
6
adjectivewith of
Lacking something, or lacking any knowledge of it.
The walls were innocent of decoration, bare and white.
He remained innocent of any knowledge about the plan.
Similardevoid, free, bare, ignorant, unaware
Note
A construction more than a mood: it always takes of, followed by whatever is missing. Much of its appeal is dry wit, because a word for guiltlessness is applied to an absence. Agatha Christie's Abbey is innocent of central heating, and the children in Judith Martin's Miss Manners' Guide are innocent of manners. It suits empty places as readily as unknowing people, as with a station innocent of buildings.
7
adjective
Not contraband; not subject to seizure or forfeiture.
The court ruled the cargo innocent and ordered its release.
Only the smuggled crates were seized; the innocent goods were returned.
Similarlegitimate, lawful
Oppositecontraband, illicit
Note
A wartime trader's sense. Innocent goods may be carried to a belligerent nation because they are not contraband, so they cannot be seized. Here the innocence belongs to the freight, not to anyone aboard. It is the cargo's counterpart of the "lawful" sense, which calls a permitted trade innocent.
8
adjective
Lawful; permitted.
The treaty guaranteed innocent passage for merchant ships.
They argued the practice was innocent and well within the law.
Similarlawful, legal, legitimate, permissible, permitted
Oppositeunlawful, illegal, illicit
9
adjective
Not harmful; harmless or benign.
The lesion proved innocent, requiring no further treatment.
An innocent murmur often disappears as a child grows.
Similarharmless, benign, innocuous
Oppositeharmful, malignant, dangerous
Note
The word's original Latin meaning, now kept alive almost only by doctors. Pope's Iliad (1715–1720) could still have a spear sing "innocent" through the air and harm no one. In everyday English that use is gone, and harmless does the job. In medicine, innocent is the opposite of pathologic. An innocent murmur, as David J. Driscoll's Fundamentals of Pediatric Cardiology (2006) puts it, need not keep a child from sports.

Less common meaning

10
nounobsolete
A harmless, simple-minded person; a fool or simpleton.
The old innocent was harmless, beloved by the children he played with.
Every parish seemed to have its innocent, fed and sheltered by neighbors.
Note
An obsolete use from an older vocabulary of the mind. The simple-minded person called an innocent was valued above all as harmless, so the word leaned on the "not harmful" meaning as much as on any idea of guiltlessness. Read it historically when it turns up in older texts. In modern writing the noun means a guiltless person instead.

Practice

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Origin

This came through Middle English and Old French from Latin "innocens" ("harmless, inoffensive"), formed from "in-" ("not") plus "nocens," the present participle of "noceo" ("to hurt"). It displaced the native Old English "unscyldig."