Nocents

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Innocent persons or individuals lacking guilt; those not responsible for wrongdoing; people free from harm or blame
2. People who have committed no offense or crime; individuals without fault or moral wrongdoing; those untainted by sin or error
3. Individuals who are free from suspicion or accusation; persons not involved in harmful acts; those exhibiting purity or harmlessness

Etymology: "Nocents" is the plural of "nocent," which is itself a rare English word. The plural form simply refers to a group of people who are without blame, so the word's real story lies in the singular. "Nocent" came into Middle English meaning "guilty," borrowed from Latin "nocens," the present participle of "nocere," meaning "to harm." The surprise is that the word has flipped its sense. Its Latin source describes someone who harms, and the English word first pointed toward guilt, the opposite of the innocence the plural now expresses. The "in-" prefix in "innocent" is the usual negation, but "nocent" itself carries no negative prefix; it is the bare stem "nocent" that once meant culpable. "Nocent" is a doublet of "nuisant," which entered English from Old French and shares the same Latin ancestor, giving English two words of one root that took different paths into the language.