Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Causing injury; harmful.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Hurtful; mischievous; injurious; doing hurt: as, nocent qualities.
  • Guilty; criminal.
  • noun One who is guilty; one who is not innocent.

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

  • noun obsolete A criminal.
  • adjective Doing hurt, or having a tendency to hurt; hurtful; mischievous; noxious.
  • adjective obsolete Guilty; -- the opposite of innocent.

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

  • adjective rare Causing injury; harmful.

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

  • adjective having a tendency to cause harm

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English nocent, guilty, from Latin nocēns, nocent-, present participle of nocēre, to harm; see nek- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English nocent ("guilty"), from Latin nocens, present participle of nocere ("to harm")

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Examples

  • The "nocent" Catholics who had been in the rebellion, but who had submitted and constantly adhered to the Peace of 1648, if they had taken lands in Connaught, were to be bound by that arrangement, and not restored to their former estates.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913

  • Under this act, a court was established at Dublin, to try the claims of "nocent" and "innocent."

    A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete Thomas D'Arcy McGee 1846

  • Under this act, a court was established at Dublin, to try the claims of "nocent" and "innocent."

    A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics - Volume 2 Thomas D'Arcy McGee 1846

  • Not being able to evaluate the relative importance of Turkish Delight versus princeship … being more concerned with sugary treatness than with political traction … surely Edmund could be quite literally described as in-nocent here — as “not-knowing”.

    Archive 2009-01-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • Not being able to evaluate the relative importance of Turkish Delight versus princeship … being more concerned with sugary treatness than with political traction … surely Edmund could be quite literally described as in-nocent here — as “not-knowing”.

    Thoughts on Narnia Hal Duncan 2009

  • For almost a day he spoke to C, going through operations stretching back for years; then, for a time, he was with BMW, cursing him and saying Caspar was in nocent.

    Final Resting Place of The Pen 2010

  • He used natural light, soft-focus lenses, and muted colors, and his models were young and in - nocent.

    The X-Rated Emperor Bosworth, Patricia 2008

  • To this opinion of Galen, almost all the Greeks and Arabians subscribe, the Latins new and old, internae, tenebrae offuscant animum, ut externae nocent pueris, as children are affrighted in the dark, so are melancholy men at all times, [2665] as having the inward cause with them, and still carrying it about.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Quisquis amat, loca nota nocent; dies aegritudinem adimit, absentia delet.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Non solum vitia concipiunt ipsi principes, sed etiam infundunt in civitatem, plusque exemplo quam peccato nocent.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

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