<p>Just a random CR tip.
To make matters worse, one of the meanings of the word “ingenious” is “obsolete”.</p>
<p>Interesting…</p>
<p>“now” distinct? Were these words synonymous in the 1950’s (say) ?</p>
<p>How many word pairs can you think of with completely different meanings, but are different by only 1 letter?</p>
<p>(pause as everyone first runs through all the obscene words in his or her head :)</p>
<p>“are now distinct”? Since when did they mean the same thing? And if they did, by “now”, does that mean that their meanings just changed in these past couple days? Uhh… Source please.</p>
<p>These words are, in fact, etymologically related. Here’s the Random House etymology of “ingenuous”:</p>
<p>1590–1600; < L ingenuus native, free-born, honorable, frank, equiv. to in- in- 2 + gen- (base of gignere; ** see ingenious **) + -uus deverbal adj. suffix; see -ous </p>
<p>Thanks for the tip, OP!</p>
<p>The two words may have come from the same latin base word, but whether the two English words were interchangeable is a different question … anyone have an OED to answer this burning question? :)</p>
<p>hm… that’s interesting. Here’s how I can remember this</p>
<p>ingenious- it’s like genius, so it means smart/clever
ingenuous- sounds like genuine, means sincere.</p>