artless

adjective

art·less ˈärt-ləs

Synonyms of artless next

: lacking art, knowledge, or skill : uncultured

an artless brute

: made without skill : crude

an artless attempt to win votes

: free from artificiality : natural

artless grace

: free from guile or craft : sincerely simple

an artless young woman

artlessly adverb

artlessness noun

Did you know?

Artless, ingenuous, and naive all refer to freedom from pretension or calculation, but there are subtle differences in their uses. Ingenuous implies an inability to disguise or conceal one's feelings, while naive suggests a credulous lack of worldly wisdom. Artless generally indicates an appearance of utter naturalness, one in which a person is (or seems to be) innocent of the effect of his or her speech or behavior on others.

Choose the Right Synonym for artless

natural, ingenuous, naive, unsophisticated, artless mean free from pretension or calculation.

natural implies lacking artificiality and self-consciousness and having a spontaneousness suggesting the natural rather than the man-made world.

her unaffected, natural manner

ingenuous implies inability to disguise or conceal one's feelings or intentions.

the ingenuous enthusiasm of children

naive suggests lack of worldly wisdom often connoting credulousness and unchecked innocence.

politically naive

unsophisticated implies a lack of experience and training necessary for social ease and adroitness.

unsophisticated adolescents

artless suggests a naturalness resulting from unawareness of the effect one is producing on others.

artless charm

Examples of artless in a Sentence

Her simple artless charm won us over instantly. a genuine and artless girl

Recent Examples on the Web Cosentino has a rich, burly voice that’s unpretentious without feeling artless. —

Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 31 July 2023 On some slow or rainy day, when the tennis at Wimbledon is banging and artless as a metronome or suspended by weather, do yourself a favor. —

Sally Jenkins, Anchorage Daily News, 3 July 2023 But where scenes set in the past take care to flesh out the characters beyond their present predicaments — with, for instance, frequent flashbacks to formative moments from Edwin and Clive’s childhood — the present-day sequences feel artless in their singlemindedness. —

Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 25 Apr. 2023 On a frigid day where bright sunshine belied the miserable baseball conditions, a trio of timers positioned around the field at Nationals Park provided historic accompaniment to an artless struggle. —

Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 30 Mar. 2023 Its plain, sizable maw seems a bit artless. —

Tribune News Service, cleveland, 11 June 2022 Events are too artless to describe. —

Washington Post, 6 Aug. 2021 The new group moved into a three-bedroom house in Maidenhead and began the sort of rigorous yet artless performance training that’s now a hallmark of the pop-band origin story. —

Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 7 Nov. 2022 On Tuesday, the small-screen vista was limited to artless shots of House impeachment managers and Mr. Trump’s lawyers at their lecterns, with an occasional overhead glimpse of the chamber thrown in. —

New York Times, 21 Jan. 2020 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'artless.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.