According to those who espouse the wax theory, sincere must mean "without wax" because in Spanish sin means "without" and in Latin cera means "wax." Latin does include the word cera, and if you look up cere (pronounced \sir\) in the dictionary, you'll find it defined as "a usually waxy protuberance or enlarged area at the base of the bill of a bird."

It is also true that sin does mean "without" in Spanish. But in Armenian, sin means "empty," and in Cantonese, it means "fresh." Furthermore, there is no evidence that the Spanish sin and Latin cera ever came together to play a role in the history of the modern English word sincere.

Here's the truth about sincere, unvarnished and unpolished. English speakers borrowed the term from Middle French in the sixteenth century. It does trace back to Latin, but to the root sincerus, meaning "whole, pure, or genuine." That Latin root most likely derives from two others, the forms sem-, meaning "one," and -cerus, from a verb meaning "to create."

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