Honesty comes in flavors. A candid friend admits mistakes; a frank one tells you what you would rather not hear; a sincere one means every word. Dishonesty has flavors too: the devious person sneaks around the rules, the duplicitous one plays both sides, and the disingenuous one pretends to be more innocent than he is.
Key idea
Honest: candid (open), frank (blunt), sincere (meant), forthright (speaks up directly), integrity (honesty all the way through), guileless (innocent, no tricks). Dishonest: deceitful (lying), devious (sneaky), duplicitous (two-faced), disingenuous (falsely innocent).
The ten words
Common mistake
disingenuous is not the opposite of ingenious; it means insincere, often pretending innocence. candid means open and honest, as in a candid answer or a candid (unposed) photo.
| honest word | what it adds |
|---|---|
| candid | open; nothing hidden (admits the truth) |
| frank | blunt; says the hard thing |
| forthright | speaks up plainly, often first |
| sincere | means what is said; no pretending |
| guileless | no tricks at all, sometimes too trusting |
Three look-alikes: ingenious means clever; ingenuous means innocent and frank; disingenuous means falsely innocent. A disingenuous person pretends to be ingenuous.