Search the Dictionary

morally free from guilt or sin; purity of heart; blamelessness. The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails. Shak. Banished from man's life his happiest life, Simplicity and spotless innocence! Milton.

A caldron of boiling water into which an accused person plunged his forearm as a test of innocence or guilt.

The white color in coats of arms, intended to represent silver, or, figuratively, purity, innocence, beauty, or gentleness; -- represented in engraving by a plain white surface. Weale.

The quality or state of being blameless; innocence.

To stain with infamy; to disgrace. Blot not thy innocence with guiltless blood. Rowe.

box receives all black; but poured from thence, The stones came candid forth, the hue of innocence. Dryden.

Whiteness; brightness; (as applied to moral conditions) usullied purity; innocence. [Obs.] Nor yor unquestioned integrity Shall e'er be sullied with one taint or spot That may take from your innocence and candor. Massinger.

infancy and youth; hence, one who exhibits the characteristics of a very young person, as innocence, obedience, trustfulness, limited understanding, etc. When I was child. I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1. Cor. xii. 11.…

Of, pertaining to, befitting, or resembling, a child. "Childish innocence." Macaulay.

Exculpation by testimony to one's veracity or innocence. He was privileged from his childhood from suspicion of incontinency and needed no compurgation. Bp. Hacket.

One who bears testimony or swears to the veracity or innocence of another. See Purgation; also Wager of law, under Wager. All they who know me . . . will say they have reason in this matter to be my compurgators. Chillingworth.

Feeling, persuasion, or expectation; esp., inward sense of guilt or innocence. [R.] An honest mind is not in the power of a dishonest: to break its peace there must be some guilt or consciousness. Pope.

ation; a partial overspreading; as, wine with a dash of water; red with a dash of purple. Innocence when it has in it a dash of folly. Addison.

stored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled. Macaulay. Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss. Milton.

ow; to reject. He calls the gods to witness their offense; Disclaims the war, asserts his innocence. Dryden. He disclaims the authority of Jesus. Farmer.

The possession of dovelike qualities, harmlessness and innocence. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

To make hungry. Those animal passions which vice had . . . enhungered to feed on innocence and life. J. Martineau.

Lapse or declinsion from innocence or goodness. Specifically: The first apostasy; the act of our first parents in eating the forbidden fruit; also, the apostasy of the rebellious angels.

To represent by a metaphor; to signify or symbolize. Whose white vestments figure innocence. Shak.

To deny upon oath. Like innocence, and as serenely bold As truth, how loudly he forswears thy gold! Dryden. To forswear one's self, to swear falsely; to peforswear thyself."