naive

Etymology
Borrowed from, feminine form of , from. .

Adjective

 * 1) Lacking worldly experience, wisdom, or judgement; unsophisticated.
 * 2) Not having been exposed to something.
 * 3)  Produced in a simple, childlike style, deliberately rejecting sophisticated techniques.
 * 4)  Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.
 * 1)  Produced in a simple, childlike style, deliberately rejecting sophisticated techniques.
 * 2)  Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.
 * 1)  Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.
 * 1)  Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.

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. 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:
 * naive is covered by Merriam-Webster, AHD, Collins, Macmillan, Cambridge and OED.
 * naïve is covered by Merriam-Webster (as a variant), AHD, Collins (as a variant), Macmillan (as a variant), Cambridge (as a variant), OED (as a variant), and Century 1911.
 * GPO manual states that "Diacritical marks are not used with anglicized word" and mentions naive and naivete.
 * Guardian and Observer style guide indicates naive, naively, and naivety with no accent.
 * The diaeresis in naïve is there to indicate the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable.
 * 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

Translations

 * Albanian: ,
 * Arabic:
 * Gulf Arabic: صيدة
 * Armenian: ,
 * Azerbaijani: sadəlöhv
 * Basque: inozo
 * Belarusian: наі́ўны
 * Bulgarian:
 * Catalan: ,
 * Chinese:
 * Cantonese: 天真, 幼稚
 * Hakka: 天天
 * Hokkien: 天真,
 * Mandarin: ,
 * Cornish: anfel
 * Czech:
 * Danish: naiv, enfoldig
 * Dutch:, tegen beter weten in
 * Esperanto:
 * Finnish:
 * French: ,
 * Galician:
 * Georgian: გულუბრყვილო,
 * German:, ,
 * Greek:
 * Ancient: εὐήθης
 * Ancient Greek: ἀπειρόκακος
 * Hebrew: ,
 * Hungarian:
 * Ido:
 * Indonesian:
 * Irish: soineanta
 * Italian:, , , , ,
 * Japanese: ,
 * Korean:, , 박직하다
 * Lao: ໄຮ້ດຽງສາ
 * Latin: credulus,
 * Latvian: naivs
 * Luxembourgish:
 * Macedonian: наивен
 * Maori: tūpatokore
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål: ,
 * Nynorsk: naiv
 * Occitan:
 * Ottoman Turkish: طوی
 * Persian:, ,
 * Polish:
 * Portuguese: ,
 * Romanian:
 * Russian:
 * Scottish Gaelic: soineannta
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Cyrillic: на̏ӣван
 * Roman:
 * Slovak: naivný
 * Slovene: naiven
 * Spanish: ,
 * Swedish:, ,
 * Thai: ไร้เดียงสา
 * Turkish: ,
 * Tày: bả, bả slâư
 * Ukrainian: наї́вний
 * Vietnamese: ,
 * Yiddish: תּמימותדיק


 * Bulgarian:
 * Catalan:
 * Finnish:
 * French:
 * Galician: naíf
 * Greek:
 * Norwegian:
 * Bokmål:
 * Nynorsk: naiv
 * Portuguese:
 * Russian:
 * Spanish: ,
 * Turkish:

Noun

 * 1) A naive person; a greenhorn.

Etymology
From.