innocence

Inherited from Middle English [Term?], from Old French inocence, from Latin innocentia. Displaced native Old English unsċyld.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnəsn̩s/

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innocence (countable and uncountable, plural innocences)

1. Absence of responsibility for a crime, tort, etc.

   Synonym: unguilt

   Antonym: guilt

   Her attorney managed to convince the jury of her innocence.

2. Lack of understanding about sensitive subjects such as sexuality and crime.

   Synonym: naivety

   In his innocence, he offered the stranger to bring the package to Paris, never suspecting it contained drugs.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 9, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:innocence.
3. Lack of ability or intention to harm or damage.

   Synonym: harmlessness

   Antonym: harmfulness

   Tests have demonstrated the innocence of this substance.

   • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 96:

     His unruly hair was slicked down with water, and as Jessamy introduced him to Miss Brindle his face assumed a cherubic innocence which would immediately have aroused the suspicions of anyone who knew him.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:innocence.
4. (obsolete) Imbecility; mental deficiency.

• presumption of innocence

• innocent
• innocency

Inherited from Old French inocence, a borrowing from Latin innocentia.

• IPA^(key): /i.nɔ.sɑ̃s/

innocence f (plural innocences)

1. innocence

• présomption d’innocence

• innocent

• “innocence”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.