Acceptable
Acceptable adjective - Of a level of quality that meets one's needs or standards.
Innocuous and acceptable are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Innocuous" instead an adjective "Acceptable".
Innocuous
Innocuous adjective - Not causing or being capable of causing injury or hurt.
Acceptable and innocuous are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Acceptable" instead an adjective "Innocuous".
Mutual synonyms
Both words in one sentence
- Something that might have been perfectly innocuous and acceptable 20 or 10 or even five years ago is now regarded as automatic grounds for a rating bump, even if everything else in the series is all rainbows and unicorns.
Source: Same Content, Different Rating -
An episode of Murphy Brown had the news anchors forced to attend a "Cultural Sensitivity" seminar after an on-air discussion on acceptable terminology included seemingly-innocuous phrases that offended various groups.
Source: Political Correctness Gone Mad - Considered offensive, but acceptable in some contexts, (for example, there's an Irish bookmakers called "Paddy Power", and a brand of Irish Whiskey called, simply, "Paddy") and almost completely innocuous when it's used as a nickname for someone named Patrick.
Source: Useful Notes / British English
Cite this Source
Innocuous and Acceptable. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 07, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/acceptable/innocuous
Acceptable & Innocuous. N.p., 2016. Web. 07 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/acceptable/innocuous>.
Innocuous or Acceptable. 2016. Accessed August 07, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/acceptable/innocuous.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "acceptable" and "innocuous" have occurred on timeline