insincerity

/ˌɪnsɪnˈsɛrɪti/

Other forms: insincerities

When you're not telling the whole truth, you're demonstrating the quality of insincerity. You might detect a politician's insincerity during a speech, and decide to vote for his opponent, who seems more honest.

If you can't stand insincerity, you'll bristle when someone compliments your haircut in a false, overly enthusiastic way — you can tell they're not being forthright with you. Sincerity, the complete absence of any pretense, comes from the Latin sincerus, "whole, clean, or pure," or "genuine." Insincerity adds the "not" prefix in-, resulting in a meaning of "not genuine."

Definitions of insincerity

1. noun

   the quality of not being open or truthful; deceitful or hypocritical
   synonyms: falseness, hollowness

   antonyms:

   sincerity

   the quality of being open and truthful; not deceitful or hypocritical

   types:

   hypocrisy

   insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have

   sanctimoniousness, sanctimony

   the quality of being hypocritically devout

   fulsomeness, oiliness, oleaginousness, smarminess, unction, unctuousness

   smug self-serving earnestness

   type of:

   untruthfulness

   the quality of being untruthful