as in harmless
not causing or being capable of causing injury or hurt
those innocuous lies we must tell every day if society is to remain civil
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Recent Examples of innocuous
Grandparents should never encourage their grandchildren to keep secrets from their parents, no matter how innocuous the secret may seem, Wojcicki says.
—
Tom Huddleston Jr., CNBC, 27 Aug. 2025
Many of their actions seem fairly innocuous.
—Sam Fleischacker, Chicago Tribune, 27 Aug. 2025
Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence.
—Art Jipson, The Conversation, 26 Aug. 2025
These innocuous-seeming actions can kindle dry vegetation, potentially spawning a wildfire.
—Southern California Weather Report, Oc Register, 21 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for innocuous
Tom Huddleston Jr., CNBC, 27 Aug. 2025
Many of their actions seem fairly innocuous.
—Sam Fleischacker, Chicago Tribune, 27 Aug. 2025
Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence.
—Art Jipson, The Conversation, 26 Aug. 2025
These innocuous-seeming actions can kindle dry vegetation, potentially spawning a wildfire.
—Southern California Weather Report, Oc Register, 21 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for innocuous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for innocuous
Adjective
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Ultimately harmless, this was the piece of the bomb that would ignite the charge in the main body of the projectile.—
Michael Jerome Plunkett
September 5,
Literary Hub,
5 Sep. 2025
-
This compulsion to celebrate himself in general, and to celebrate such a juvenile, harmless gesture in particular, should be yet another reason to lose all patience with Lee Raybon.—
Alan Sepinwall,
Rolling Stone,
4 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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But even if this ultrasound does pick up on an ovarian growth, that doesn’t tell you whether the tumor is cancerous (and most of the growths found by transvaginal ultrasound are benign).—
Erica Sloan,
SELF,
5 Sep. 2025
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But levitating Treasury yields after a court ruled many of the administration's tariffs were imposed illegally has stoked some questioning of the benign equilibrium among policy, the economy and markets, prompting a wobble in equity indexes Tuesday.—
Michael Santoli,
CNBC,
2 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Unless more Democrats start being realistic, many more innocent people will unfortunately continue to suffer.—
Christopher Tremoglie,
The Washington Examiner,
5 Sep. 2025
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Ben Lewis Doherty, playing a boy named Sam whose life is upended by Robbie, is the show’s greatest innocent, a softhearted moppet who warns deer to be careful when crossing the street.—
Roxana Hadadi,
Vulture,
5 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Innocuous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/innocuous. Accessed 12 Sep. 2025.
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