Gullibility (redirected from credulousness)

Gullibility

See also Dupery.

Big Claus

foolishly falls for Little Claus’s falsified get-rich-quick schemes. [Dan. Lit.: Andersen’s Fairy Tales]

Emperor

orders a new outfit from weavers who claim it will be invisible to anyone unworthy of his position. [Dan. Lit.: Andersen “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in Andersen’s Fairy Tales]

Georgette

Mary Richards’ coworker and Ted Baxter’s wife; epitomizes gullibility. [TV: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in Terrace, II, 70]

Oswald

believes Edmund’s false charges against Edgar. [Br. Lit.: King Lear]

Othello

“thinks men honest that but seem to be so.” [Br. Lit.: Othello]

Peachum, Polly

among others, believes she is Macheath’s wife. [Br. Opera: The Beggar’s Opera]

Quixote, Don

completely taken in by all the tales and plans of his squire and others who humor his delusions. [Span. Lit.: Cervantes Don Quixote]

Simple Simon

credulous booby. [Nurs. Rhyme: Opie, 387]

Tenderfoot

told that cowpunching is a cinch, is badly hurt when he tries it and is tossed. [Am. Balladry: “The Tenderfoot”]

Urfe, Nicholas

trusts in the specious sincerity of the actors in Conchis’s psychological experiments on him. [Br. Lit.: John Fowles The Magus in Weiss, 279]