Insincerities

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being dishonest or lacking genuine feelings; instances of deceitful or misleading behavior; expressions that conceal true intentions or emotions in social interactions
2. A characteristic of disingenuousness marked by a lack of authenticity or truthfulness; acts or utterances that involve false pretenses or feigned emotions; statements made to manipulate or deceive others
3. Situations where an individual does not express real thoughts or feelings, often to gain favor; the act of pretending to be sincere while actually being deceptive; communication that masks true sentiments under a facade of friendliness or concern

Etymology: "Insincerities" is simply the plural of "insincerity," so the history belongs to the root word. "Insincerity" is formed from the prefix "in-," meaning "not," attached to "sincerity." The prefix comes from Latin, where "in-" carried the same negating sense, and it was joined to English "sincerity" to produce a word meaning the absence of sincerity. The base word "sincerity" is the more interesting half. It descends from Latin "sincerus," which carried the sense of "clean" or "pure," and English uses of "sincere" grew from that notion of something unmixed and genuine. Insincerity, then, is in effect a word for something that has been adulterated, its true quality mixed with falsehood.

Synonyms: dishonesty, duplicity, hypocrisy, insincerity, falsehood

Antonyms: sincerity, honesty, truthfulness, genuineness, authenticity