naïveté

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See also: naivete, naiveté, and naïvete

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from French naïveté. See also nativity.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /nɑˌiːvˈteɪ/, /nɑˌiːvəˈteɪ/

Noun[edit]

naïveté (countable and uncountable, plural naïvetés)

  1. Lack of sophistication, experience, judgement or worldliness; artlessness; gullibility; credulity.
    Synonyms: naiveness, naivety
    • 1995, Carl Sagan, “The Most Precious Thing”, in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark‎[1], 1st edition, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 5:
      Maybe Mr. “Buckley” should know to be more skeptical about what’s dished out to him by popular culture. But apart from that, it’s hard to see how it’s his fault. He simply accepted what the most widely available and accessible sources of information claimed was true. For his naïveté, he was systematically misled and bamboozled.
    • 2019, Hillel Levine, In Search of Sugihara:
      In poring over these vile and well-preserved folders full of antisemitica in the Foreign Ministry archives, one senses a naïveté, even earnestness among Sugihara's generation.

Usage notes[edit]

  • According to Google Ngram Viewer corpus data, as of 2019, naïveté and naivety were the most common spellings; naivety was the most common spelling in British English while naïveté was the most common spelling in American English.[1] naivete used to be the most common variant but dropped sharply after 2000.[1] Whether the Viewer accurately tracks accents is unclear.
  • Comparing the -ete forms and the -ety forms as two groups yields that in British English -ety forms are slightly more common while in American English the -ete forms are much more common.[2]
  • Spellings in dictionaries:
    • naïveté is covered by Merriam-Webster (as a variant),[3] AHD,[4] Collins (as a variant),[5] OED[6] and Century 1911.[7]
    • naivete is covered by Merriam-Webster.[3]
    • naiveté is covered by Merriam-Webster (as less commonly),[3] AHD,[4] Collins,[5] Cambridge (as a variant),[8] and Macmillan American.[9]
    • naivety is covered by Macmillan British,[9] Cambridge[8] and OED.[10]
  • US Government Publishing Office manual states that "Diacritical marks are not used with anglicized words" and mentions naive and naivete.[11]
  • Guardian and Observer style guide indicates naive, naively, and naivety with no accent.[12]
  • The diaeresis in naïveté is there to indicate the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable.[13]

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 naïveté, naivete, naivety, naïvety, naiveté, naiveness, naïveness at Google Ngram Viewer
  2. ^ naïveté+naivete+naiveté, naivety+naïvety at Google Ngram Viewer
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 “naïveté”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 “naïveté”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 “naïveté”, in Collins English Dictionary.
  6. ^ “naïveté”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  7. ^ “naivete”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 “naivety”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 “naive” (US) / “naive” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
  10. ^ “naivety”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  11. ^ U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, govinfo.gov
  12. ^ Guardian and Observer style guide, theguardian.com
  13. ^ What's a Diaeresis? | Merriam-Webster

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From naïf +‎ -eté. Compare nativité, cf. also Latin nātīvitās.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /na.iv.te/
  • Audio (FR)(file)

Noun[edit]

naïveté f (plural naïvetés)

  1. (usually uncountable) innocence, naïveté

See also[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

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