Word of the Day for Sunday November 20, 2005 ingenue \AN-zhuh-noo\, noun: 1. A naive girl or young woman. 2. An actress playing such a person; also: the stage role of an ingenue. This is not the face of an ingenue; this is an old soul in a new body -- wary, wise to her own long past, on to the wiles of the world, and having miles to go before she sleeps. --Sarah Ban Breathnach, [1]Something More Her passages -- from ingenue to royal bride to young mother to estranged wife to independent-minded divorcee -- attracted a global audience and made Diana the world's most famed and photographed woman. --Eugene Robinson, "From Sheltered Life to Palace Life, To a Life of Her Own," [2]Washington Post, September 1, 1997 _________________________________________________________ Ingenue comes from the French, from Latin ingenuus, "freeborn; worthy of a free man; hence honorable, frank; tender, delicate." References 1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446677086/ref=nosim/lexico 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=ingenue