Search the Dictionary

or quality of being holy; perfect moral integrity or purity; freedom from sin; sanctity; innocence. Who is like thee, glorious in holiness! Ex. xv. 11.

Spiritually whole or sound; of unimpaired innocence and virtue; free from sinful affections; pure in heart; godly; pious; irreproachable; guiltless; acceptable to God. Now through her round of holy thought The Church our annual steps has brought. Keble. Holy Alliance (Hist.), a league ostensibly for conserving religion…

Innocence.

That with which anyone is invested; a vestment. Whose white investments figure innocence. Shak.

The quality or state of being irreproachable; integrity; innocence.

ining to a maiden, or to maidens; suitable to, or characteristic of, a virgin; as, maiden innocence. "Amid the maiden throng." Addison. Have you no modesty, no maiden shame Shak.

An ancient form of test to determine guilt or innocence, by appealing to a supernatural decision, -- once common in Europe, and still practiced in the East and by savage tribes.

hing which secures advancement and general acceptance. Sir P. Sidney. His passport is his innocence and grace. Dryden.

To make a false oath to; to deceive by oaths and protestations. [Obs.] And with a virgin innocence did pray For me, that perjured her. J. Fletcher.

ostulate applied in advance to all cases of a particular class; e. g., the presumption of innocence and of regularity of records. Such a presumption is rebuttable or irrebuttable.

Belonging to the first ages; pristine; original; primitive; primary; as, the primeval innocence of man. "This is the forest primeval." Longfellow. From chaos, and primeval darkness, came Light. Keats.

inning or origin, or to early times; original; primordial; primeval; first; as, primitive innocence; the primitive church. "Our primitive great sire." Milton.

to the earliest period or state; original; primitive; primeval; as, the pristine state of innocence; the pristine manners of a people; pristine vigor.

Freedom from guilt or the defilement of sin; innocence; chastity; as, purity of heart or of life.

after loss or decay; a remaining portion; a remnant. Chaucer. Wyclif. The relics of lost innocence. Kebe. The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics. Shak.

o obey the summons. Sir W. Scott. Bear witness, Heaven, with what reluctancy Her helpless innocence I doom to die. Dryden.

have confidence; to trust; to depend; -- with on, formerly also with in. Go in thy native innocence; rely On what thou hast of virtue. Milton. On some fond breast the parting soul relies. Gray.

Fig.: Pure; unblemished; unstained; spotless. There did he lose his snowy innocence. J. Hall (1646). Snowy heron (Zoöl.), a white heron, or egret (Ardea candidissima), found in the Southern United States, and southward to Chili; -- called also plume bird. -- Snowy lemming (Zoöl.), the collared lemming (Cuniculus torqu…

th guilt or infamy; to bring reproach on; to blot; to soil; to tarnish. Of honor void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained. Milton.

Let their table be made a snare and a trap. Rom. xi. 9. God and your majesty Protect mine innocence, or I fall into The trap is laid for me! Shak.