Dictionary Definition
innocence
Noun
2 the state of being free from sin or moral
wrong; lacking a knowledge of evil [syn: purity, sinlessness]
3 a state or condition of being innocent of a
specific crime or offense; "the trial established his innocence"
[ant: guilt]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Noun
- Absence of responsibility for a
crime.
- Her attorney managed to convince the jury of her innocence.
- Lack of understanding about
sensitive subjects such as sexuality and crime.
- In his innocence, he offered the stranger to bring the package to Paris, never suspecting it contained drugs.
- Lack of ability or intention to harm or damage.
- Tests have demonstrated the innocence of this substance.
Antonyms
Synonyms
Related terms
Translations
absence of responsibility for a crime
- Czech: nevina
- Dutch: onschuld
- Finnish: syyttömyys
- Hungarian: ártatlanság
- Icelandic: sakleysi
- Malayalam: നിഷ്കളങ്കത (nishkaLangkatha)
- Slovene: nedolžnost
- Swedish: oskuld , oskyldighet
lack of understanding about sensitive subjects
such as sexuality and crime
- Dutch: onschuld
- Finnish: viattomuus
- Hungarian: ártatlanság, naivság
- Icelandic: sakleysi , barnaskapur , grandaleysi
- Malayalam: നിഷ്കളങ്കത (nishkaLangkatha)
- Slovene: nedolžnost
- Swedish: oskuld
lack of ability or intention to harm or damage
- Finnish: vaarattomuus
- Hungarian: ártalmatlanság
- Icelandic: meinlaus m|f, meinlaust ; saklaus m|f, saklaust ; skaðlaus m|f, skaðlaust
- Malayalam: നിഷ്കളങ്കത (nishkaLangkatha)
- Slovene: nedolžnost
- Swedish: harmlöshet
- ttbc Italian: innocenza
- ttbc Scottish Gaelic: ionracas , neo-chiontachd , neo-choireachd
Extensive Definition
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.
innocence in German: Unschuld
innocence in Spanish: Inocencia
innocence in French: Innocence (caractère)
innocence in Russian: Невинность
innocence in Simple English:
Innocence
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
agnosticism, artlessness, benignancy, benignity, blankmindedness,
blotlessness,
bluffness, bluntness, callowness, candor, chastity, childlikeness, cleanliness, cleanness, directness, empty-headedness,
greenhornism,
greenness, guilelessness, guiltlessness, harmlessness, hiatus of
learning, honor, hurtlessness, ignorance, ignorantism, ignorantness, immaculacy, immaculateness, inanity, inexperience, ingenuousness, innocuousness, inoffensiveness,
know-nothingism, knowledge-gap, lack of information, naiveness, naivete, naivety, nescience, obscurantism, openheartedness,
openness, outspokenness, plainness, purity, rawness, sexual innocence,
simpleheartedness,
simplemindedness,
simpleness, simplicity, sincerity, single-heartedness,
single-mindedness, singleness of heart, snowiness, spotlessness, stainlessness, tabula
rasa, taintlessness, trustfulness, unacquaintance, unacquaintedness,
unawareness,
unblemishedness,
unblottedness,
uncorruptness,
undefiledness,
unfamiliarity,
unguardedness,
uninjuriousness,
unintelligence,
unknowing, unknowingness, unobnoxiousness,
unripeness, unsoiledness, unsophisticatedness,
unsophistication,
unspottedness,
unstainedness,
unsulliedness,
unsuspiciousness,
untaintedness,
unwariness, vacuity, vacuousness, virtue, virtuousness, whiteness