innocuous
adjective
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Look at the Prefix to Define Innocuous
Innocuous has harmful roots – it comes to us from the Latin adjective innocuus, which was formed by combining the negative prefix in- with a form of the verb nocēre, meaning "to harm" or "to hurt." In addition, nocēre is related to the truly "harmful" words noxious, nocent, and even nocuous. Innocent is from nocēre as well, although like innocuous it has the in- prefix negating the hurtful possibilities. Innocuous first appeared in print in the early 17th century with the clearly Latin-derived meaning "harmless or causing no injury" (as in "an innocuous gas"). The second sense is a metaphorical extension of the idea of injury, used to indicate that someone or something does not cause hurt feelings, or even strong feelings ("an innocuous book" or "innocuous issues," for example).
Synonyms
Examples of innocuous in a Sentence
John McWhorter, Wall Street Journal, 17 Sept. 2003
Small and innocuous looking, the habanero is uncontested as the hottest pepper in the world, the mother of all peppers.
—Jim Robbins, Smithsonian, January 1992
And there was LeRoy … a somewhat gruesome but innocuous neighborhood dimwit who gave me the creeps when he sat down on the front stoop to listen to a bunch of us talking after school.
—Philip Roth, New York Times Book Review, 18 Oct. 1987
The salamander, an innocuous amphibian like a big newt, was also regarded with a mixture of horror and awe.
—David Attenborough, The First Eden, 1987
He told a few innocuous jokes.
those innocuous lies we must tell every day if society is to remain civil
Amaris Encinas, USA TODAY, 21 Nov. 2024
The tension begins with a seemingly innocuous scene of Hal walking through a warren of cubicles at the CIA headquarters, on his way for an official U.S. government call to explain the VP’s role in the bombing.
—Mark Peikert, IndieWire, 4 Nov. 2024
The term may make the mistakes seem almost innocuous, but in some applications, even a minuscule error rate can have severe ramifications.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2024
Such innocuous forms of teenage rebellion as heavy metal fandom or Dungeons & Dragons could get a kid branded a cultist—if not a murderer.
—Judy Berman, TIME, 30 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for innocuous 
Dictionary Entries Near innocuous
Cite this Entry
“Innocuous.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innocuous. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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innocuous
adjective
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adjective
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