guileless
GYL-lis
/ˈɡaɪlləs/
Free of deceit, cunning, or slyness; innocent and naive.
Implies honest sincerity that comes from a lack of capacity or desire to trick others.
The story behind the word. Guile comes from Old French 'gile' (deceit/trickery). Adding '-less' creates a descriptor for someone entirely devoid of strategic trickery or manipulative games.
Word relationships
- artless: Artless stresses natural simplicity without social calculation.
- ingenuous: Ingenuous emphasizes trusting innocence and frankness.
- guileful: Guileful means full of cunning trickery.
- crafty: Crafty suggests clever dishonesty.
Commonly confused with
- gullible: Gullible means easily tricked; guileless means incapable of tricking others.
Word family
- guilelessness (noun): Innocent lack of deceit.
- guilelessly (adverb): In an innocent, trick-free manner.
Collocations
- guileless charm
- guileless nature
- guileless smile
- guileless honesty
Idioms & expressions
- without a deceitful bone in one's body
Example sentences
- "Her guileless nature made her beloved by neighbors, though sometimes vulnerable to scams." Character analysis
- "He looked at the judge with a guileless smile that convinced the jury of his innocence." Novel description
Memory hook
GUILE-LESS = GUILE (guilty tricks) LESS (without): completely without guilty tricks. Innocent of all tricks.
When not to use
Avoid when describing calculated honesty; guileless implies natural innocence.
Fun facts
- Guile shares ancestral Germanic roots with the word 'wile' (as in wily coyote).
Explore more words
sincere, gullible, naive, guile, disingenuous, unpretentious
Also appears in
Take your vocabulary further with LangBlitz
Our English vocabulary app: FSRS spaced repetition, 5,000+ curated words across 119 topic groups, CEFR A1 to C2. Explore your mastery with the beautiful Vocabulary World feature.