You could picture innocence as a clean sheet: nothing bad has been written on it — no crime, no harm, no knowledge of harm. Whether the sheet is clean because you did nothing wrong, or because life has not yet marked it, both readings live in this one word.
From the word’s history
From Latin innocentia, formed from in- (not) + nocere (to harm) — literally 'the state of not harming'. The Latin picture is not 'not caught' but 'does no damage', which is why the word still covers both the person who did not commit the crime and the person who cannot yet imagine doing one.
來自拉丁文 innocentia，拆開是 in-（不）+ nocere（傷害），字面就是「不造成傷害的狀態」。注意拉丁文的畫面不是「沒被抓到」，而是「不會弄傷別人」——這正好解釋了為什麼這個字到今天還能同時罩住兩件事：一個沒有犯下罪行的人，和一個根本還想不到要去傷人的人。英文裡 innocent 與 innocuous（無害的）共用同一個 nocere 字根，可以互相印證。
Wiktionary: innocence < Middle English < Old French innocence < Latin innocentia (in- + nocēns, present participle of nocēre 'to harm')
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
innocencenoun/ˈɪnəsn̩s/
- 1
Absence of responsibility for a crime, tort, etc.
- Her attorney managed to convince the jury of her innocence.
- 2
Lack of understanding about sensitive subjects such as sexuality and crime.
- In his innocence, he offered the stranger to bring the package to Paris, never suspecting it contained drugs.
- Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.
- 3
Lack of ability or intention to harm or damage.
- Tests have demonstrated the innocence of this substance.
- His unruly hair was slicked down with water, and as Jessamy introduced him to Miss Brindle his face assumed a cherubic innocence which would immediately have aroused the suspicions of anyone who knew him.
- 4
obsoleteImbecility; mental deficiency.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。