disingenuous

English

WOTD – 11 June 2008

Etymology

From dis- +‎ ingenuous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌdɪs.ɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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Adjective

disingenuous (comparative more disingenuous, superlative most disingenuous)

1. Not honourable; unworthy of honour.
2. Not ingenuous; not frank or open.

   Synonym: uncandid

   • 1726, William Broome, edited by Maynard Mack, The Poems of Alexander Pope: The Odyssey of Homer. Books XIII-XXIV, volume 10, Methuen, published 1969, page 378:

     I am not so vain as to think these Remarks free from faults, nor so disingenuous as not to confess them:

3. Assuming a pose of naïveté to make a point or for deception.
   • 2012 March, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist‎^[1], volume 100, number 2, page 87:

     But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.

Derived terms

• disingenuously
• disingenuousness

Collocations

with nouns

• disingenuous attempt
• disingenuous argument
• disingenuous statement
• disingenuous conduct
• disingenuous people
• disingenuous excuse
• disingenuous question
• disingenuous assertion

Translations

not noble; unbecoming true honor

• Catalan: fals (ca), hipòcrita (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 虛情假意的／虚情假意的 (zh) (xūqíngjiǎyì de), 不誠實的／不诚实的 (bù chéngshí de)

• Danish: uærlig (da), uoprigtig, falsk (da), uvederhæftig
• Dutch: oneerlijk (nl), onwaardig (nl), onoprecht (nl), achterbaks (nl)
• Esperanto: malsincera
• Finnish: petollinen (fi), vilpillinen (fi)
• French: sournois (fr), malhonnête (fr)
• German: unaufrichtig (de), unehrlich (de), unwürdig (de), hinterlistig (de), verschlagen (de), unredlich (de)
• Japanese: 不誠実な (ja) (ふせいじつな, fuseijitsu na)
• Macedonian: не́искрен m (néiskren)
• Maori: kōpūrau, kōpūngahuru
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: uoppriktig, uærlig, falsk (no)

• Polish: niehonorowy (pl)
• Portuguese: falso (pt), vil (pt)
• Romanian: necinstit (ro)
• Russian: неи́скренний (ru) (neískrennij)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: нѐискрен m

  Roman: nèiskren (sh) m

• Slovak: nečestný
• Spanish: falso (es), poco sincero, desingenuo m
• Swedish: lömsk (sv)

Further reading

• “disingenuous”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “disingenuous”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “disingenuous”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.