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ingenue

[an-zhuh-noo, -nyoo, an-zhey-ny] / ˈæn ʒəˌnu, -ˌnju, ɛ̃ ʒeɪˈnü /


ingénue




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

A thoroughly modern ingenue, Flora is determined to bring change.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 12, 2025

Rachel is taken with Gustav’s films, and the director sees a familiar spark of brilliance in the young ingenue.

From Salon Nov. 23, 2025

But her school had a traditionally beautiful ingenue who landed the leads.

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 13, 2025

Born in New Jersey and raised in Florida, Gigi was a drama school nerd who turned to music when she realised she was "never going to be cast in the ingenue role".

From BBC Nov. 21, 2024

“I don’t know. I don’t have that whole ingenue thing down like she does.”

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon

All of the things that make him an unlikely ingénue — the flop sweat, the slight chunkiness, the desire to pass for a cute foodie — click into place.

From Los Angeles Times Jun. 26, 2026

This woman should be smoking cigarettes in a Parisian cafe, not getting up to the bubbly mischief Van der Velden envisions for her ingénue.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 6, 2025

Pickett explains: "I wasn't really interested in her being an ingénue."

From BBC Sep. 20, 2025

Kelli O’Hara and Adam Guettel had the inkling more than 20 years ago, when she was a Broadway ingénue, working on what became her breakthrough Tony-nominated role in “Light in the Piazza.”

From New York Times Jan. 22, 2024

The first differs from its fellows only as being of the same class, but better; and the dialect of the ingénue Constance seems to have been thought interesting and pathetic.

From A History of Elizabethan Literature by George Saintsbury

While the best actress award has often gone to ingénues, the best actor award has rarely gone to men below the age of 40.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 22, 2026

Sitting next to a casting director as a line of secondary ingénues streamed past, Dan said, “I vote for her,” and she got the part.

From Golf Digest Mar. 8, 2019

The video was posted online the next day and swiftly attracted international media coverage, destroying the sisters’ carefully crafted reputations as fashion-obsessed ingénues.

From New York Times Nov. 10, 2018

Her troupe did such physical work — "we weren't ingénues at all" — that it actually took her years to unlearn larger-than-life stage theater and transition to naturalistic film acting.

From Los Angeles Times May 2, 2018

She stood before the screen, certain she could practically smell the restaurant, the heavy perfumes of a room full of divas and ingénues.

From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny




Vocabulary lists containing ingenue


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