frank

frank adj Frank, candid, open, plain are comparable when they mean showing in speech, looks, and manners the willingness to tell what one feels or thinks.

Frank stresses lack of reserve or of reticence in the expression of one's thoughts or feelings; it therefore usually connotes freedom from such restraints as fear, shyness, inarticulateness, secretiveness, or tact

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this, to Anne, was a decided imperfection . . . she prized the frank, the openhearted, the eager character beyond all others— Austen

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things were as she had suspected: she had been frank in her questions and Polly had been frank in her answers— Joyce

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the child who has been treated wisely and kindly has a frank look in the eyes, and a fearless demeanor even with strangers— Russell

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Candid is often used interchangeably with frank; it may distinctively imply a fundamental honesty and fairness that make evasion impossible and suggest a refusal to dodge an issue or to be governed by bias or fear

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I have tried to be as candid as possible, to follow out every thought as far as I could without caring where it would lead and without tempering any conclusions out of consideration to either my own sensibilities or those of any one else— Krutch

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I am sure that he was candid with me. I am certain that he had no guile— White

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Open implies both frankness and candor, but it often suggests more naturalness or artlessness than frank and less conscientiousness than candid

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Mr. Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open. There was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight, at the evil or good of others— Austen

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for the white man to put himself mentally on their level is not more impossible than for these aborigines to be perfectly open, as children are, towards the white— Hudson

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Plain comes closer to candid than to frank, but it suggests outspokenness, downrightness, and freedom from affectation more than fairness of mind

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I am no orator, as Brutus is; but, as you know me all, a plain blunt man— Shak.

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the difference between ordinary phraseology that makes its meaning plain and legal phraseology that makes its meaning certain— Gowers

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Analogous words: ingenuous, naive, unsophisticated, simple, *natural: *forthright, downright: *straightforward, aboveboard

Antonyms: reticent

Contrasted words: *silent, taciturn, reserved, uncommunicative: furtive, *secret, covert, underhand