disingenuous

comparative more disingenuous · superlative most disingenuous

1. Not honourable; unworthy of honour.
2. Not ingenuous; not frank or open.

   I am not so vain as to think these Remarks free from faults, nor so disingenuous as not to confess them:

   1726, William Broome, edited by Maynard Mack, The Poems of Alexander Pope: The Odyssey of Homer. Books XIII-XXIV, volume 10, Methuen, published 1969, page 378

   Synonyms: uncandid

3. Assuming a pose of naïveté to make a point or for deception.

   But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.

   2012 March 28, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 18 Apr 2012, page 87