innocency

From Latin innocēntia, from innocēns (“innocent”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɪnəsənsi/

innocency (countable and uncountable, plural innocencies)

1. (uncountable, archaic) Innocence; the state of being free from guilt or moral wrong.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 11, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     The verie names of Goodnesse and innocentie, are for this respect in some sort names of contempt.

   • 1629, Joseph Hall, The Reconciler:

     And let the wilful or ignorant mistakers know, that they wound innocency.

2. (uncountable, archaic) Innocence, simplicity, lack of deceit or guile.
3. (uncountable, archaic) Innocence, harmlessness.
   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, II.5:

     That Glass is poison, according unto common conceit, I know not how to grant. Not onely from the innocency of its ingredients…

4. (archaic) An innocence; an innocent idea or thing.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience […] ‎, London: Folio Society, published 2008, page 69:

     It is to be hoped that we all have some friend […] whose affinities are rather with flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark human passions.

• “innocency”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.