Innocent means having done nothing wrong — the opposite of guilty. Presumed innocent, an innocent man, innocent until proven guilty.
It also means harmless or free from bad intention: an innocent question, an innocent mistake. And it means without knowledge of the harder parts of the world, which is what innocent means applied to a child. The three senses shade into each other and the context always tells them apart. Note the legal detail: courts find people not guilty rather than innocent, because the finding is about proof rather than about the person. Innocent bystander and innocent victim are fixed phrases in news writing.
1adjectiveinnocentNot guilty of a crime or a wrong.
“He maintained he was innocent for thirty years.”
synonyms: blameless, not guilty
2adjectiveharmlessHarmless and not intended to cause trouble.
“It was an innocent remark and it started a row.”
3adjectiveknowingNot knowing about the harder or worse parts of life.
“She was young enough to be genuinely innocent about it.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
innocent is a state of being without fault.
Also accepted in games: blameless
Latin innocens is in-, not, plus nocens, harming — from nocere, to hurt, the same root as noxious and obnoxious. An innocent person is literally one who does no harm, which is a slightly different claim from having done nothing wrong.
Proto-Indo-European
*neḱ-
Latin
innocēns — harmless, inoffensive
Old French
innocent
Middle English
innocent
English, today
innocent
Built from
From Middle English innocent, from Old French innocent, inocent, borrowed from Latin innocēns (“harmless, inoffensive”), from in- (“not”) + nocēns, present participle of noceō (“to hurt”). by surface analysis, in- + nocent. Displaced native Old English unsċyldiġ.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA