naive
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: naïve
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from French naïve, feminine form of naïf, from Latin nativus (“native, natural”). Doublet of native.
Pronunciation
Adjective
naive (comparative more naive, superlative most naive)
- Lacking worldly experience, wisdom, or judgement; unsophisticated.
- 1965, Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics and music), “Going on Seventeen”, in The Sound of Music:
- I am sixteen going on seventeen, I know that I'm naive
- 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Krogan: Genophage Codex entry:
- The salarians believed the genophage would be used as a deterrent, a position the turians viewed as naive. Once the project was complete, the turians mass produced and deployed it. The krogan homeworld, their colonies, and all occupied worlds were infected.
- Not having been exposed to something.
- 2011, Lila Miller, Kate Hurley, Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters:
- Animals entering shelters are either (a) immunologically naïve and susceptible to infection and development of disease if exposed to pathogens; (b) already immune […]
- (of art) Produced in a simple, childlike style, deliberately rejecting sophisticated techniques.
- 2006, Janis Mink, Joan Miró, →ISBN, page 33:
- By 1921 when Miró painted his key work, naive painting had been recognized by the avantgarde art world as a genre in its own right.
- (computing) Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.
- 2007, Takao Terano, Huan Liu, Arbee L.P. Chen, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, →ISBN:
- We have experiments of running our matching algorithm and a naive matching algorithm for such a term tree and a tree, and have compared the performance of the two algorithms.
Usage notes
- Google Ngram Viewer shows naive to be historically more common than naïve but the latter has gained popularity after year 2000, reaching the popularity of the other spelling.[1] However, since Google Ngram Viewer results for older books are derived from OCR of scans, which very often make mistakes for diacritics, this estimate is likely substantially inaccurate.
- Spellings in dictionaries:
- GPO manual states that "Diacritical marks are not used with anglicized word" and mentions naive and naivete.[9]
- Guardian and Observer style guide indicates naive, naively, and naivety with no accent.[10]
- The diaeresis in naïve is there to indicate the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable.[11]
- Since naïve is a feminine adjective in French, the masculine naïf (or naif) is occasionally used in English when describing a man, but naive/naïve is most often treated as gender-neutral. Naif or naïf is also the noun form in English.
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:naive
Antonyms
- See also Thesaurus:naive
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
lacking experience, wisdom, or judgement
|
Noun
naive (plural naives)
- A naive person; a greenhorn.
- 2010, Daphne Oz, The Dorm Room Diet:
- As a seasoned woman—of nineteen—I felt it was my place to tell each of these naïves that such plans were easier made than followed.
- 2018, King Midas, Stupid Brokers - Stupid Clients:
- In other words, they'd buy securities from these naives for 55 and sell them similar securities for 65. In plain English, they'd pay $550 per $1,000 bond and turn right around and sell them similar stuff for $650.
Translations
References
- “naive”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “naive”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
- “naive” (US) / “naive” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
- “naive”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
- “naive”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. - “naive”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, govinfo.gov
- Guardian and Observer style guide, theguardian.com
Further reading
- “naive”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- naïve, naive at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
Anagrams
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