disingenuously
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dis·in·gen·u·ous
(dĭs′ĭn-jĕn′yo͞o-əs)adj.
1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating: "Increasingly, the question of immigration has become a disingenuous stalking-horse for race and racial hostility" (Tyler Stovall).
2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.
3. Usage Problem Unaware or uninformed; naive.
dis′in·gen′u·ous·ly adv.
dis′in·gen′u·ous·ness n.
Usage Note: Disingenuous means "not ingenuous," that is, not innocent, naive, or guileless. As such it can refer to someone who is insincere or calculating, as in It is both insensitive and disingenuous for the White House to describe its aid package and the proposal to eliminate the federal payment as "tough love," or to someone who is pretending to be unsophisticated, as in "I don't have a clue about late Beethoven!" he said. The remark seemed disingenuous, coming from one of the world's foremost concert pianists. Both of these examples were accepted by 90 percent of the Usage Panel in our 2016 survey. As with many words containing prefixes that negate (dis-) or seem to negate (in-), speakers sometimes lose track of exactly what is being negated, and sometimes use disingenuous when ingenuous would be more appropriate, namely as a synonym for naive. This usage is considered an error by careful writers: in our 2016 survey, 87 percent of the Usage Panel disapproved of the phrase the disingenuous tourist who falls prey to stereotypical con artists.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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| Adv. | 1. |  disingenuously - in a disingenuous manner; "disingenuously, he asked leading questions abut his opponent's work" |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
disingenuously
adv → unaufrichtig, unehrlich; say, remark → unaufrichtigerweise; the finance ministry claims disingenuously that it did not know this was going on → das Finanzministerium behauptet wider besseren Wissens, dass es über die Vorgänge nicht informiert gewesen sei
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007