innocuous

Definition

Harmless; producing no ill effect.

Etymology

From Latin innocuus (“harmless”) (therefore, no gemination in + nocuous).

Example Sentences

• "With its green cupola or tapering spire, / Which sunset touches with innocuous fire, / The little church appears, to sanctify / The precincts duly where men live and die— [...]"
• "The shells fell for the most part innocuous; an eyewitness saw children at play beside the flaming houses; not a soul was injured."
• "Other things, too, there were, not less deadly though seemingly innocuous—dried fungi, the touch of which was death and whose poison was carried on in the air; also traps intended for birds, beast, fishes, reptiles, and insects; machines which could produce pain of any kind and degree, and the only mercy of which was the power of producing speedy death."

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