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GRE vocabulary

disingenuous

adjectiveHigh-frequency wordMore D words

insincere while pretending to be candid

Word origin: From Latin ingenuus, frank or noble, with the negating prefix dis-.

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In a sentence

Disingenuous in a sentence

Here are example sentences showing disingenuous in a sentence.

It was disingenuous of him to feign surprise at a result he engineered.

It was disingenuous of the company to claim surprise at findings its own engineers had flagged years earlier.

Synonyms
insinceredeceitfultwo-faced
Antonyms
sincerecandidfrank

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Verbal · Text Completion

The historian argued that the empire's collapse was not blank but the predictable outcome of decades of fiscal mismanagement that contemporaries had simply refused to acknowledge.

Select the word that best completes the sentence.

Usage & nuance

Using “disingenuous” well

Disingenuous means falsely sincere, pretending candor while concealing one's real aims, pairing with insincere and deceitful. It is the negation of ingenuous, meaning innocent and frank, a look-alike pair the GRE exploits.

Common questions

Questions about “disingenuous”

Disingenuous (adjective) means insincere while pretending to be candid
Here is disingenuous used in an example sentence: "It was disingenuous of him to feign surprise at a result he engineered." Another example: "It was disingenuous of the company to claim surprise at findings its own engineers had flagged years earlier."
Common synonyms for disingenuous include insincere, deceitful, two-faced.
Antonyms of disingenuous include sincere, candid, frank.
Clusters with insincere, deceitful, and two-faced in Sentence Equivalence. Antonyms sincere, candid, and frank describe genuine openness.
Yes. Disingenuous is a high-frequency GRE word, so it is worth prioritising as you build your vocabulary.

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