| Library / English Dictionary |
INNOCENCE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The quality of innocent naivete
Synonyms:
artlessness; ingenuousness; innocence; naturalness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("innocence" is a kind of...):
naiveness; naivete; naivety (lack of sophistication or worldliness)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "innocence"):
innocency (an innocent quality or thing or act)
Derivation:
innocent (lacking in sophistication or worldliness)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A state or condition of being innocent of a specific crime or offense
Example:
the trial established his innocence
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("innocence" is a kind of...):
condition; status (a state at a particular time)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "innocence"):
blamelessness; guiltlessness; inculpability; inculpableness (a state of innocence)
clear (the state of being free of suspicion)
Antonym:
guilt (the state of having committed an offense)
Derivation:
innocent (free from evil or guilt)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The state of being unsullied by sin or moral wrong; lacking a knowledge of evil
Synonyms:
innocence; pureness; purity; sinlessness; whiteness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("innocence" is a kind of...):
condition; status (a state at a particular time)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "innocence"):
cleanness (without moral defects)
Derivation:
innocent (free from sin)
Context examples:
Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that was endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even innocence could keep from suffering.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address!
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
In vain he declared his innocence; he was dismissed with no better answer.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Well, gentlemen, I was standing with her just inside the window, in all innocence, as God is my judge, when he rushed like a madman into the room, called her the vilest name that a man could use to a woman, and welted her across the face with the stick he had in his hand.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But he was too deep, and too ready, and too clever for me, and by the time the two men had come back out of breath and confessed that they had lost the track in a crowd, and been scolded like thieves, I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
I believed in her innocence; I knew it.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
He thanked God that she had been born and sheltered to such innocence.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Like enough, he returned; though there's a sarcastic meaning in that observation for an amiable piece of innocence like my young friend.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Lord Avon lived for two years longer—long enough, with the help of Ambrose, to fully establish his innocence of the horrible crime, in the shadow of which he had lived so long.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
