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 , orjudgement . - adjective of art Produced in a simple,
childlike style, deliberately rejectingsophisticated 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
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Once it's here, it's spreading like a virus that's going into what we call a naive population.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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(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.
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(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.
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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
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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
oroboros commented on the word naive
Evian in reverse.
July 22, 2007
fbharjo commented on the word naive
A primo of mine wrote in his high school's yearbook a legacy: "I leave naive."
November 13, 2010