Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not noxious or harmful; doing no harm; innocuous: as, an innoxious drug.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Free from hurtful qualities or effects; harmless; innocuous.
  • adjective Free from crime; pure; innocent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having no harmful effect.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective having no adverse effect

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This the deluded Camilla thought an expedient the most innoxious; and gave to him so much of her time, that his susceptibility to the charms of youth and beauty was put to a trial beyond his fortitude; and, in a very few days, notwithstanding their disproportion in age, his embarrassed though large estates, and the little or no fortune which she had in view, he determined to marry her: for when

    Camilla 2008

  • Haggis is too innoxious to possibly slander outright, and so it is with pure obliviousness that this scene smacks of both racism and the kind of well-intended condescension he trades so abundantly in.

    In the Valley of Elah (2007): C- 2007

  • In short, wheresoever we find strength, and in what light soever we look upon power, we shall all along observe the sublime the concomitant of terror, and contempt the attendant on a strength that is subservient and innoxious.

    On the Sublime and Beautiful 2007

  • From some peculiar derangement in the structure or, in other words, some deviation in the natural action of a gland destined to create a mild, innoxious fluid, a poison of the most deadly nature may be created; for example: That gland, which in its sound state secretes pure saliva, may, from being thrown into diseased action, produce a poison of the most destructive quality.

    On Vaccination Against Smallpox 2005

  • From some peculiar derangement in the structure or, in other words, some deviation in the natural action of a gland destined to create a mild, innoxious fluid, a poison of the most deadly nature may be created; for example: That gland, which in its sound state secretes pure saliva, may, from being thrown into diseased action, produce a poison of the most destructive quality.

    On Vaccination Against Smallpox 2005

  • A slim-shafted palm shooting through the leafy mantle, and swaying airily a profuse mass of fiery red seeds, distinctive in shape, may be the prototype of a flirt, but the flirtation which arrests attention and bewitches the beholder is also innoxious.

    The Confessions of a Beachcomber 2003

  • If perchance some stricken Asiatic come among us, plague dies with him, uncommunicated and innoxious.

    The Last Man 2003

  • Even common water, that apparently innoxious pabulum, when corrupted by the filth of populous cities, is a deadly and insidious destroyer.

    The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley 2003

  • In short, I have seldom heard of any noblemen so innoxious.

    Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark 2003

  • That it was not a childish and innoxious laughter, appears from the indignation of Sarah.

    Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1 1509-1564 1996

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  • The vigor and patience, both of the men and horses, are continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear, and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket.

    - Gibbon, Decline and Fall, XXVI. i.

    June 27, 2009