innocuous
Syllables: in·noc·u·ousUK/ɪˈnɒkjuəs//ɪˈnɑkjuəs/
innocuous adjective: harmless; producing no ill effect.
Adjective
innocuous (comparative more innocuous, superlative most innocuous)
- Harmless; producing no ill effect.
- With its green cupola or tapering spire, / Which sunset touches with innocuous fire, / The little church appears, to sanctify / The precincts duly where men live and die— [...]1838, Richard Chenevix Trench, “Sonnet I. To England. In the Tyrol.”, in Sabbation; Honor Neale; and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 158
- The shells fell for the most part innocuous; an eyewitness saw children at play beside the flaming houses; not a soul was injured.1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 9, in A Footnote to History
- Synonyms:
- innoxious, nonpoisonous, nontoxic, undamaging, unharmful, harmless
- Antonyms:
- nocuous, noxious, harmful, poisonous, toxic, damaging, deleterious, detrimental, hurtful, inimical
- Inoffensive; unprovocative; unexceptionable.
- Ruth Devlin announced that the song must wait, though it appeared to be innocuous and child-like in its sentiments.1893, Gilbert Parker, chapter 12, in Mrs. Falchion
- He sat down, and lighted a cigarette, casting about the while for an innocuous topic of conversation.1910, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 29, in The Intrusion of Jimmy
- Synonyms:
- uncontroversial, anodyne
innocuous meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
innocuous in Tamil
- தீங்கிழைக்காத, தீங்கற்ற, தீங்கில்லா, இடையூரற்ற
innocuous in Marathi
- निरुपद्रवी
innocuous in Urdu
- بےضرر, غیرمضر, سلیم
innocuous in Bengali
- ক্ষতিহীন, নির্দোষ
More languagesFewer languages
- innocuous in Malayalam
- നിരുപദ്രവകരം, ഹാനി വരുത്താത്തത്
- innocuous in Kannada
- ತೊಂದರೆ ಮಾಡದ, ನಿರುಪದ್ರವಿ, ಕೆಡುಕು ಮಾಡದ, ಅಪಾಯವಲ್ಲದ
- innocuous in Gujarati
- નિરુપદ્રવી
- innocuous in Persian
- بیضرر bi-zarar
Examples of innocuous in a sentence
- I don't know why she gave me an ice-cold look — I had thought that the topic of conversation was totally innocuous.
- That might sound like an innocuous action to you, but in truth, it was far from it.
- The debate seemed innocuous—a minor kerfuffle, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved and moved on from.
Synonyms of innocuous
Antonyms
9 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of innocuous
| comparative | more innocuous |
|---|---|
| superlative | most innocuous |
Origin of innocuous
From Latin innocuus (“harmless”) (therefore, no gemination in + nocuous).
Words formed from innocuous
Questions about innocuous
- What does innocuous mean?
- Innocuous means harmless; producing no ill effect.
- What is innocuous in Tamil?
- Innocuous in Tamil is தீங்கிழைக்காத, தீங்கற்ற, தீங்கில்லா. See Innocuous meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is innocuous?
- Innocuous is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce innocuous?
- Innocuous is pronounced /ɪˈnɒkjuəs/ (UK).
Words near innocuous in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: innocuous (page history and authors); innocuous (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innocuous (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); innocuous (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innocuous (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innocuous (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innocuous (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); innocuous (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-innocuous.ogg.
Cite this entry: “innocuous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/innocuous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.