characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious
<adj.all> an ingenuous admission of responsibility
lacking in sophistication or worldliness
<adj.all> 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
Ingenuous \In*gen"u*ous\, a. [L. ingenuus inborn, innate, freeborn, noble, frank; pref. in- in + the root of gignere to beget. See {Genius}, and cf. {Ingenious}.] 1. Of honorable extraction; freeborn; noble; as, ingenuous blood of birth.
2. Noble; generous; magnanimous; honorable; upright; high-minded; as, an ingenuous ardor or zeal.
If an ingenuous detestation of falsehood be but carefully and early instilled, that is the true and genuine method to obviate dishonesty. --Locke.
3. Free from reserve, disguise, equivocation, or dissimulation; open; frank; as, an ingenuous man; an ingenuous declaration, confession, etc.
Sensible in myself . . . what a burden it is for me, who would be ingenuous, to be loaded with courtesies which he hath not the least hope to requite or deserve. --Fuller.
4. Ingenious. [Obs.] --Shak.
Note: (Formerly) printers did not discriminate between . . . ingenuous and ingenious, and these words were used or rather printed interchangeably almost to the beginning of the eighteenth century. --G. P. Marsh.
Usage: {Ingenuous}, {Open}, {Frank}. One who is open speaks out at once what is uppermost in his mind; one who is frank does it from a natural boldness, or dislike of self-restraint; one who is ingenuous is actuated by a native simplicity and artlessness, which make him willing to confess faults, and make known his sentiments without reserve. See {Candid}.
' I was interrupted by Deborah Kirby, the women's convenor: 'Paul, don't you think you're being rather ingenuous here.
A smallish, roundish man with a sharp nose and an ingenuous manner, he favors drug-store cigars and cheap suits and keeps a missal on his office credenza.