| Library / English Dictionary |
CANDID
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Characterized by directness in manner or speech; without subtlety or evasion
Example:
a point-blank accusation
Synonyms:
blunt; candid; forthright; frank; free-spoken; outspoken; plainspoken; point-blank; straight-from-the-shoulder
Classified under:
Similar:
direct (straightforward in means or manner or behavior or language or action)
Derivation:
candidness (the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Openly straightforward and direct without reserve or secretiveness
Example:
a heart-to-heart talk
Synonyms:
candid; heart-to-heart; open
Classified under:
Similar:
artless; ingenuous (characterized by an inability to mask your feelings; not devious)
Derivation:
candidness (the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Informal or natural; especially caught off guard or unprepared
Example:
a candid interview
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
uncontrived; unstudied (not by design or artifice; unforced and impromptu)
Context examples:
I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to confound the times, and mistake the dates, of my several voyages and returns; neither assigning the true year, nor the true month, nor day of the month: and I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since the publication of my book; neither have I any copy left: however, I have sent you some corrections, which you may insert, if ever there should be a second edition: and yet I cannot stand to them; but shall leave that matter to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they please.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Disappointed, however, and vexed as she was, and sometimes displeased with his uncertain behaviour to herself, she was very well disposed on the whole to regard his actions with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications, which had been rather more painfully extorted from her, for Willoughby's service, by her mother.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
