innocence
/ˈɪnəsəns
/noun [mass noun]
1The state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offence: they must prove their innocence...
- It is always open to the judge or the jury, if there is a jury, to accept an interpretation of the facts consistent with innocence.
- No reinterpretation of the evidence and no protestations of innocence can alter those facts.
- After all, it refers to a standard of proof that assumes innocence until guilt is proven.
Synonyms
guiltlessness, blamelessness, freedom from guilt, freedom from blame, irreproachability, clean hands
1.1Lack of guile or corruption; purity: the healthy bloom in her cheeks gave her an aura of innocence...
- Her image of purity, innocence and kindness fits the traditional Chinese female role.
- I always tell her she has the quality that all of us need to project more, which is purity and innocence.
- Eager to learn from the great man, she hangs on his every word, reminding him of his own faraway innocence and purity of motive.
Synonyms
harmlessness, innocuousness, lack of malice, inoffensiveness
1.2 euphemistic A person’s virginity: all the boys lost their innocence with her...
- She ran her hand through the water in mourning for her lost innocence, and her inability to fight him.
Synonyms
virginity, chastity, chasteness, purity, lack of sin, sinlessness, impeccability, spotlessness;
virtue, virtuousness, integrity, honour, righteousness, morality, decency, wholesomeness;
Christianity immaculateness
Phrases
in all innocence
Derivatives
innocency
- For man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over Creation.
- They protested their innocency as in the presence of the great God, whom forthwith they were to appear before: they wished, and declared their wish, that their blood might be the last innocent blood shed upon that account.
- In holding up a child as the model for the inheritor of the kingdom, Jesus does not appear to be idealizing the child for its innocency.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French, from Latin innocentia, from innocent- 'not harming' (based on nocere 'injure').