ingenue

plural ingenues · alternative ingénue

1. An innocent, unsophisticated, naïve, wholesome girl or young woman.

   Near-synonym: girl next door

   1 more example

   She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.

   2023 December 6, Sam Lansky, “Person of Year 2023 : Taylor Swift”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Dec 2023

   Synonyms: girl next door · Antonyms: femme fatale, enchantress, femme fatale, man-eater, mantrap, seductress, she-wolf, siren

2. broadcastingA dramatic role of such a woman; an actress playing such a role.

   The intelligent and talented blonde who was fluent in English, French and Spanish was interested in art and joined a local theater group to work on set designs but wound up on stage playing an ingenue in Liliom and was spotted by director Vincente Minnelli.

   2012, Thomas Lisanti, Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969, McFarland, →ISBN, page 396

3. misspellingrareMisspelling of ingenu.

   America why callow ingenue bile?

   2006 September, Kevin McFadden, “It's a Cue, the Name”, in Poetry, volume 188, number 5, page 417

   2 more examples

   Mr. Acheson's failure as Secretary of State ... has been an inability to understand people or to be understood by them.

   1951 June 11, Harold L. Ickes, “Acheson, Political Ingenue”, in The New Republic, volume 124, number 24, page 17

   I cannot resist citing, slightly out of context, another bit of Baudelaire: "Satan s'est fait ingénu" (Satan has made himself into an ingenue [Oeuvres Completes 640])

   2002 Spring, Joshua David Gonsalves, “What Makes Lord Byron Go? Strong Determinations-Public/Private-of Imperial Errancy”, in Studies in Romanticism, volume 41, number 1, Psychoanalytic, page 40fn