NAIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Naive

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/nˌaɪˈiv/ Listen

adjective

naive adj.

Having native or unaffected simplicity; ingenuous; artless; frank; as, naïve manners; a naïve person; naïve and unsophisticated remarks.

Having a lack of knowledge, judgment, or experience; especially, lacking sophistication in judging the motives of others; credulous; as, a naive belief in the honesty of politicians.

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Etymology of 'Naive'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Naive" Quotes from Famous Books

... made by the English in France. Philippe Millet's En Liaison avec les Anglais gives in a series of delightful pictures portraits of British types from the French angle. There can be little doubt that the British quality, genial naive, plucky and generous, has won for itself a real affection in France wherever it has had a chance ...

— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... the naive wonder of an inexperienced man. Having paid this tribute to his superior knowledge, he regained his previous air of grave perception. "I reckon she ain't none of them. But I'm keepin' you from your work. Good-by. My name's Bowers—Jim Bowers, of Mendocino. ...

— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... often have appeared naive and undevious. The fact was that his passion for truth-probing and his worship of the undiscovered loveliness of life had obscured whatever self-consciousness had been born in him. Meeting him for the first time was like entering another ...

— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... recalled to the throne of Poland?" asks Marie, and the naive question reveals that many years of banishment have not quenched in the hearts of the exiles the hope of a return ...

— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... brotherhood. As they have formulated their own morals by laying the greatest stress upon the largest morality, so if they could found their own schools, it is doubtful whether they would be of the mechanic institute type. Courses of study arranged by a group of workingmen are most naive in their breadth and generality. They will select the history of the world in preference to that of any period or nation. The "wonders of science" or "the story of evolution" will attract workingmen to a lecture when zooelogy or chemistry ...

— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

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