- 1
An ingenuous person is simple, trusting, and honest, especially because they have not had much experience of life. They say what they think. They believe what they are told. There is no trick in them — and sometimes no armour either. The word can be kind (a refreshing, ingenuous question) or a little sad (too ingenuous to see they were being used). It is a formal, adjective; you will meet it in stories and essays more than in chat. The famous trap is the neighbour word ingenious, which means clever at inventing. They look like twins. They are not. Ingenuous is the open, unguarded one. Though actually, both go back to Latin ideas about birth and character, but English split them: one kept “frank and noble,” the other kept “clever.” If you remember only one thing, remember that.
天真率直的（不是「機靈的」；那是 ingenious）
組成Learned borrowing from Latin ingenuus, “frank, of noble character.” Doublet of ingenu (an innocent young man).
同家族的字
- ingenudoublet: same Latin source; an innocent young man
- ingenuitysame Latin family; ingenuity later shifted toward “clever inventing”
- ingenuouslythe adverb from this adjective
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
ingenuousadj/ɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/
- 1
Naive and trusting.
- 2
Demonstrating childlike simplicity.
- "Do you mean to say you didn't leave your wife for another woman?" "Of course not." "On your word of honour?" I don't know why I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me.
- 3
Unsophisticated; clumsy or obvious.
- The apparent contradictions in his behaviour should therefore be discounted as ingenuous attempts to extricate himself from the consequences of an intellectual position which he once adopted but was never really his by intimate conviction.
- […] Semitic agitation by stating 'the truth' in terms of facts and figures, the practice of self-criticism represented a well-intended but ingenuous effort to defend Jewry against anti-Semitism.
- 4
Unable to mask one's feelings.
- 5
Straightforward, candid, open, frank.
- [H]is Grace’s Man at his club, in company doubtless with other Men of equal social rank, talks over his master’s character and affairs with the ingenuous truthfulness which befits gentlemen who are met together in confidence.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。