Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Lacking worldly experience and understanding, especially.
  • adjective Simple and guileless; artless.
  • adjective Unsuspecting or credulous.
  • adjective Showing or characterized by a lack of sophistication and critical judgment.
  • adjective Not having experienced or been subjected to something, as.
  • adjective Not previously subjected to experiments.
  • adjective Not having previously taken or received a particular drug.
  • noun One who is artless, credulous, or uncritical.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Simple; unsophisticated; ingenuous; artless.
  • In philosophy, unreflective; uncritical.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having native or unaffected simplicity; ingenuous; artless; frank
  • adjective Having a lack of knowledge, judgment, or experience; especially, lacking sophistication in judging the motives of others; credulous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Lacking experience, wisdom, or judgement.
  • adjective of art Produced in a simple, childlike style, deliberately rejecting sophisticated techniques.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective lacking information or instruction
  • adjective marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience
  • adjective inexperienced
  • adjective not initiated; deficient in relevant experience
  • adjective of or created by one without formal training; simple or naive in style

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French naïve, feminine of naïf, from Old French naif, natural, native, from Latin nātīvus, native, rustic, from nātus, past participle of nāscī, to be born; see genə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French naïve, from Latin nativus ("native, natural").

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Examples

  • Once it's here, it's spreading like a virus that's going into what we call a naive population.

    CNN Transcript Jul 23, 2009 2009

  • At a news conference today with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Bush took aim at what he called a naive conclusion and a political leak.

    CNN Transcript Sep 26, 2006 2006

  • At a news conference today with the visiting president of Afghanistan, Mr. Bush attacked what he called a naive conclusion drawn from a major government report on the war on terror.

    CNN Transcript Sep 26, 2006 2006

  • He directed his ire at Hansen who had used the word "naive" in his assessment of the game in Monday's newspaper.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Jason Burt 2011

  • I also reject what I call the naive Austrian view, which is that the only information problem that markets cannot solve is that of seeing through the distortions caused by government money.

    Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • While I'm more than a little nervous that "naive" is code for "adorkably clumsy," I'm crossing my fingers that the agent Bynes replaced us with knows what he or she is doing.

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • (on camera): He says the U.S. should reject what he calls the naive and flawed thinking that by sitting down with terrorist groups and their sponsors like Iran, they'll stop being threats.

    CNN Transcript May 17, 2008 2008

  • (on camera): He says the U.S. should reject what he calls the naive and flawed thinking that by sitting down with terrorist groups and their sponsors like Iran, they'll stop being threats.

    CNN Transcript May 18, 2008 2008

  • There's lots of highly sohpisticated people here and on our city council, and in fact, being naive is a virtue; we're not so cynical.

    Seattle Cops Must Earn Our Respect. And They’re Not. « PubliCola 2010

  • Now and then, rubbing his eyes vigorously, an editor catches a sudden glimpse of the revolution and breaks out in naive volubility, as, for instance, the one who wrote the following in the Chicago Chronicle: American socialists are revolutionists.

    Revolution 2010

Comments

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  • Evian in reverse.

    July 22, 2007

  • A primo of mine wrote in his high school's yearbook a legacy: "I leave naive."

    November 13, 2010