nocent means causing injury; harmful.
nocent is pronounced /ˈnəʊ.sənt/.
Etymology
From Middle English nocent (“guilty”), from Latin nocens, present participle of nocere (“to harm”). Doublet of nuisant.
adj
- Causing injury; harmful.“[…] [Satan] held on
His midnight search, where soonest he might finde
The Serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found
In Labyrinth of many a round self-rowld,
His head the midst, well stor’d with suttle wiles:
Not yet in horrid Shade or dismal Den,
Nor nocent yet, but on the grassie Herbe
Fearless unfeard he slept […]”
- guilty; not innocent“Nocent, not innocent he is, that seeketh to deface,
By word the thing, that he by deed hat taught men to imbrace;
Which being now a Bishop old, doth study to destroy
The thing, which he a young man once did covet to injoy.”
noun
- A guilty person.“[…] there is no reason that the innocents and nocents sufferings should be alike, for then punishments would not be so effectuall to terrifie others, nor to give future security to innocence.”