LEXIS

English · adjective · Collision

sincere

/sɪnˈsɪə/

A Latin word for unmixed and genuine, long shadowed by a folk story about wax.

Two derivations occupy the same English word: a scholarly reconstruction (*sem- + *ker- ‘one growth’) and a popular tale (sine cera ‘without wax’). The tale is old. It is not the etymology.

Morphology From Latin sincērus. English from 1530s via French sincère.

Folk etymology

sine + cēra1,2,4

‘without wax’; folk etymology, dismissed by OED and Century Dictionary

against

Scholarly derivation

*sm̥-kēro- / *sem- + *ker-1,3

of one growth; unmixed. Watkins / AHD: *sem- ‘one’ + *ker- ‘to grow’ (cf. Ceres, crescent). De Vaan finds a lost *caerus ‘whole’ also plausible. Not certain.

Senses through time

  1. 1530s English

    Pure, unmixed, unadulterated; also free from pretence or falsehood.1

    Established

  2. Latin

    Of things: whole, clean, pure, uninjured, unmixed. Figuratively: genuine, candid.1,2

    Established

Semantic change

  • unmixed (of substances)

    Latin figurative → English 1530s

    unfeigned (of persons)

    Material purity becomes moral candour. Established1

Read the text

  • There is no probability in the old explanation from _sine cera_ ‘without wax’.2,4

    The dictionary’s verdict on the folk tale. The tale itself is attested from the 17th century onward.

  • Sincere is that which is without mixture, as hony without wax.4

    Early English attempt to justify the wax story via honey, not sculpture.

Two shores

Constellation

Elon Musk

No plate in the inspected public worlds yet.

No primary-source occurrence in the built lexicon yet.

Follow the number

Numerical analysis comes after language. Historical systems and modern English mappings are labeled. Misses are kept. Further calculation lives at CIPHER.

73 · reduced 1 · miss

  • 73 · reduced 1

    Modern mapping · miss

    Modern English ordinal

    SINCERE letter sum.

    73. No 42. The interesting thing in this word is the collision of stories, not a number.

Ask the next question

Ask the next question

  • Why does a false derivation survive for four centuries after dictionaries reject it?
  • If the scholarly root is ‘one growth’, what does sincere still share with same and Ceres?
  • When a beautiful story is not the history, what office remains for the story?

Neighbors

Notes

Notes
  1. Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, sincere.
  2. Oxford English Dictionary, sincere (as cited: no probability in sine cera).
  3. American Heritage Dictionary, root *sm̥kēros (via secondary reports).
  4. Grammarphobia, ‘House of wax’ (2012), collecting 17c.–21c. folk versions.

Last verified 2026-09-18