disingenuous
not candid; pretending to be sincere
Roots
- -ous / -ious: full of or marked by a quality
- dis- / dif-: apart, away, not, reversal, or disruption
- gen / gener: birth, kind, origin, or producing
Other words with the gen / gener root
- congenial: pleasant, friendly, or naturally suited
- engender: to cause or bring into being
- generate: to produce or bring into being
- heterogeneous: made of different kinds
- homogeneous: of the same kind throughout
- ingenuous: innocent and straightforward
Disingenuous is fake openness: the natural honesty of ingenuous has been switched off.
His apology sounded disingenuous because it blamed everyone except himself.
Put ingenuous and disingenuous together. Ingenuous is open-faced and uncalculated; disingenuous performs that openness while hiding an angle.