ingenue

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See also: ingénue

English

WOTD – 17 September 2007

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French ingénue, the feminine form of ingénu (“guileless”), originally from the Latin ingenuus (“ingenuous”).

Pronunciation

Noun

ingenue (plural ingenues)

  1. An innocent, unsophisticated, naïve, wholesome girl or young woman.
    • 2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time‎:
      She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.
  2. (theater, film) A dramatic role of such a woman; an actress playing such a role.
    Hypernym: stock character
    Coordinate terms: girl next door, femme fatale, damsel in distress
    • 2012, Thomas Lisanti, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969‎, McFarland, →ISBN, page 396:
      The intelligent and talented blonde who was fluent in English, French and Spanish was interested in art and joined a local theater group to work on set designs but wound up on stage playing an ingenue in Liliom and was spotted by director Vincente Minnelli.
  3. (rare) Misspelling of ingenu.
    • 1951 June 11, Harold L. Ickes, “Acheson, Political Ingenue”, in The New Republic, volume 124, number 24, page 17:
      Mr. Acheson's failure as Secretary of State ... has been an inability to understand people or to be understood by them.
    • 2002 Spring, Joshua David Gonsalves, “What Makes Lord Byron Go? Strong Determinations-Public/Private-of Imperial Errancy”, in Studies in Romanticism, volume 41, number 1, Psychoanalytic, page 40fn:
      I cannot resist citing, slightly out of context, another bit of Baudelaire: "Satan s'est fait ingénu" (Satan has made himself into an ingenue [Oeuvres Completes 640])
    • 2006 September, Kevin McFadden, “It's a Cue, the Name”, in Poetry, volume 188, number 5, page 417:
      America why callow ingenue bile?

Usage notes

The corresponding masculine term, ingenu, is poorly known, and so the feminine term is sometimes used in a gender-neutral or masculine way. (See the 2002 citation, where the explicit masculine French is feminized in English.)

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

Anagrams

Italian

Adjective

ingenue f pl

  1. feminine plural of ingenuo

Noun

ingenue f

  1. plural of ingenua

Anagrams

Latin

Adjective

ingenue

  1. vocative masculine singular of ingenuus

References

  • “ingenue”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “ingenue”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • ingenue in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
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