disingenuous
/ˌdɪ.sɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/adjective
disingenuous is spelled D-I-S-I-N-G-E-N-U-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is disingenous: about 220 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 23 of all searches for the word. Disingenuous is an adjective meaning “Not honourable; unworthy of honour”.
How many letters and syllables are in disingenuous?
| Letters | 12: D-I-S-I-N-G-E-N-U-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 5 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 30,789th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, disingenous, about 220 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell disingenuous?
Disingenuous is spelled D-I-S-I-N-G-E-N-U-O-U-S. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for disingenuous in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is disingenuous?
Disingenuous appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,789th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce disingenuous?
- /ˌdɪ.sɪnˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.əs/
Disingenuous has 5 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-disingenuous.ogg, En-au-disingenuous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of disingenuous
- more disingenuous comparative
- most disingenuous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does disingenuous mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Not honourable; unworthy of honour.
- 2
Not ingenuous; not frank or open.
- 3
Assuming a pose of naïveté to make a point or for deception.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Disingenuous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense not noble; unbecoming true honor:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | sournois, malhonnête |
| German | unaufrichtig, unehrlich, unwürdig, hinterlistig, verschlagen, unredlich |
| Portuguese | falso, vil |
| Spanish | falso, poco sincero, desingenuo, insincero |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does disingenuous come from?
From dis- + ingenuous.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).