ingenue

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The Word of the Day for December 13 is: 

ingenue   \AN-juh-noo\   noun
          1 : a naive girl or young woman 
    *2 : the stage role of an ingenue; also: an actress playing such a role

Example sentence:
          When she was younger, the actress was often typecast as the ingenue 
who is unwittingly pursued by several adoring men.

Did you know?
     Although Becky Sharp, the ambitious heroine of William Makepeace 
Thackeray's 1848 novel _Vanity Fair_, is not usually thought of as innocent or 
naïve, the first recorded use of "ingenue" in English does refer to her. 
Thackeray's use was attributive: "When attacked sometimes, Becky had a knack of 
adopting a demure ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous." The word 
"ingenue" typically refers to someone who is innocent to the ways of the world, 
so you probably won't be too surprised to learn that it shares an ancestor, 
Latin "ingenuus," with "ingenuous," a word meaning "showing innocent or 
childlike simplicity and candidness." More directly, our "ingenue" comes from 
French "ingenue," the feminine form of "ingenu," meaning "ingenuous." 





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