innocent adj

1 free from evil or guilt; "an innocent child"; "the principle that one is innocent until proved guilty" [syn: guiltless, clean-handed] [ant: guilty]

2 lacking intent or capacity to injure; "an innocent prank" [syn: innocuous]

3 free from sin [syn: impeccant, sinless]

4 lacking in sophistication or worldliness; "a child's innocent stare"; "his ingenuous explanation that he would not have burned the church if he had not thought the bishop was in it" [syn: ingenuous]

5 used of things; lacking sense or awareness; "ignorant hope"; "fine innocent weather" [syn: ignorant] n : a person who lacks knowledge of evil [syn: inexperienced person]

English

Etymology

Latin in-, nocere hurt

Pronunciation

Adjective

1. Pure, incorrupt, unspoiled, or naïve.
2. Bearing no responsibility for a crime.
3. Harmless.

Related terms

• innocence
• innocently

Translations

• Catalan: innocent
• Czech: nevinný
• Esperanto: senkulpa
• Finnish: viaton (1,2), syytön (2), harmiton (3)
• German: unschuldig
• Hebrew:
• Ido: nekulpabla
• Interlingua: innocente
• Italian: innocente m|f
• Portuguese: inocente
• Scottish Gaelic: ionraic, maoth, neo-chiontach, neo-choireach, socharach
• Slovene: nedolžen , nedolžna , nedolžno
• Spanish: inocente

Noun

1. Those who are innocent; young children.

   The slaughter of the innocents was a significant event in the New Testament.

Catalan

Adjective

innocent

1. innocent

Usage notes

"El dia dels innocents" (the day of innocents) is the 28th December, it's similar to 1st April

Related terms

• innocència
• innocentada

French

Pronunciation

• IPA: /i.nɔ.sɑ̃/
• SAMPA: /i.nO.sA~/

Adjective

1. innocent

Related terms

• innocemment
• innocence
• innocenter

Innocence is a term that describes the lack of guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. It may also be used to indicate a general lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing. Its antonym is corruption.

It can also refer to a state of unknowing, where one's experience is lesser, in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale. In contrast to ignorance, it is generally viewed as a positive term, connoting a blissfully positive view of the world, in particular one where the lack of knowledge stems from a lack of wrongdoing, whereas greater knowledge comes from doing wrong. This connotation may be connected with a popular false etymology explaining "innocent" as meaning "not knowing" (Latin noscere).

People who lack the mental capacity to understand the nature of their acts may be regarded as innocent regardless of their behavior. From this meaning comes the term innocent to refer to a child under the age of reason, or a person, of any age, who is severely mentally disabled.

In some cases, the term of "innocence" connotes a pejorative meaning, where an assumed level of experience dictates common discourse or baseline qualifications for entry into another, different, social experience. Since experience is the prime factor in determining a person's point of view, innocence is often also used to imply an ignorance or lack of personal experience.

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