Disingenuous means pretending to be more honest than you are. A disingenuous answer, frankly disingenuous, disingenuous at best.
It is the polite way of calling something a lie, which is why it appears so often in parliaments where the plain word is forbidden. It is the negative of ingenuous, meaning open and innocent.
1adjectivedisingenuousPretending to be more honest than you are.
“It's disingenuous of him to claim he knew nothing about the plan when he helped write it.”
disingenuous is a quality.
Latin
ingenuus — of noble character, frank
English
ingenuous
English, today
disingenuous
From dis- + ingenuous. ingenuous Latin ingenuus (“of noble character, frank”). a doublet of ingenu.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA