Innocences

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A state of being free from guilt or wrongdoing, often associated with purity or naivety
2. A lack of experience or sophistication, leading to a sense of unawareness about the complexities of life
3. The condition of being harmless or unblemished, especially in moral or legal contexts

Etymology: "Innocences" is simply the plural of "innocence," so it refers to several separate instances or kinds of lack of guilt rather than a new sense of its own. The base noun came into English through Old French "innocence" and "inocence" from Latin "innocentia," which is built from "in-" meaning "not" and "nocens," "harming" or "guilty," the same root that gives English "noxious" and "nocent." English already had a native word for the idea, "unsċyld," meaning guiltlessness, but the Latin-derived term displaced it. "Innocency," a doublet of "innocence" that came through the same Latin source, survived alongside it for a long time.

Synonyms: naiveté, innocency, blamelessness

Antonyms: culpability, guilt