naive

See also: naïve

English

Alternative spellings

• naïve

Etymology

Borrowing from French naïve, from Latin nativus (“native, natural”). Doublet of native.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /naɪˈiv/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adjective

naive (comparative more naive, superlative most naive)

1. Lacking worldly experience, wisdom, or judgement; unsophisticated; against better judgement.

   Surely you're not naive enough to believe adverts!

2. (of art) Produced in a simple, childlike style, deliberately rejecting sophisticated techniques.

   I've always liked the naive way in which he ignores all the background detail.

3. (computing) Intuitive; designed to follow the way ordinary people approach a problem.
   • 2007, Takao Terano, ‎Huan Liu, ‎& Arbee L.P. Chen, Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, ISBN 354045571X:

     We have experiments of running our matching algorithm and a naive matching algorithm for such a term tree and a tree, and have compared the performance of the two algorithms.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:naive

Antonyms

• See also Thesaurus:naive

Derived terms

Derived terms

• naively
• naiveness

• naivete
• naivety

Related terms

• naif
• naïf

Translations

lacking experience, wisdom, or judgement

• Albanian: sylesh (sq), makalush (sq)
• Arabic: سَاذَج‎‎ m (sāḏaj), سَاذَجَة‎‎ f (sāḏaja)

  Gulf Arabic: صيدة‎‎ (9e:də)

• Armenian: միամիտ (hy) (miamit), պարզամիտ (hy) (parzamit)
• Bulgarian: наивен (bg) (naiven)
• Catalan: ingenu (ca) m, càndid (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 天真 (tin¹ zan¹), 幼稚 (jau³ zi⁶)

  Hakka: 天天 (thiên-thiên)

  Mandarin: 天真 (zh) (tiānzhēn), 幼稚 (zh) (yòuzhì)

  Min Nan: 天真 (thian-chin), 幼稚 (zh-min-nan) (iù-tī)

• Cornish: anfel
• Czech: naivní (cs)
• Danish: naiv, enfoldig
• Dutch: naïef (nl), tegen beter weten in
• Esperanto: naiva (eo)
• Finnish: naiivi (fi)
• French: naïf (fr) m, naïve (fr) f
• Galician: inxenuo (gl)
• Georgian: გულუბრყვილო (gulubrq̇vilo), მიამიტი (miamiṭi)
• German: unbefangen (de), naiv (de), blauäugig (de)
• Greek: αφελής (el) m, f (afelís)
• Hebrew: נָאִיבִי‎‎ (he) (na'ívi), תָּמִים‎‎ (he) (tamím)
• Hungarian: naiv (hu)
• Ido: naiva (io)

• Indonesian: naif (id)
• Italian: ingenuo (it)
• Japanese: 無邪気 (ja) (mujaki), あどけない (adokenai)
• Korean: 순진한 (sunjinhan), 우직한 (ujikhan), 박직한 (bakjikhan)
• Lao: ໄຮ້ດຽງສາ (hai dīang sā)
• Latin: credulus, simplex (la)
• Luxembourgish: naiv
• Macedonian: наивен (naiven)
• Maori: tūpatokore
• Norwegian: naiv (no), godtroende (no)
• Persian: ساده لوح‎‎ (fa) (sâde-lowh), خام‎‎ (fa) (xâm), ببو‎‎ (fa) (babu)
• Polish: naiwny (pl)
• Portuguese: ingênuo (pt)
• Russian: наи́вный (ru) (naívnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: soineannta
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: наиван

  Roman: naivan (sh)

• Slovak: naivný m
• Spanish: cándido (es), ingenuo (es)
• Swedish: naiv (sv), blåögd (sv), oskyldig (sv)
• Turkish: saf (tr), naif (tr)
• Vietnamese: ngờ nghệch, khờ dại, ngây thơ
• Yiddish: תּמימותדיק‎‎ (temimesdik)

(art) simple, childlike style

• Catalan: naïf
• Finnish: naivistinen (fi)
• French: naïf (fr) m, naïve (fr) f
• Galician: naíf

• Greek: ναΐφ (naḯf)
• Spanish: naíf (es), naif (es)
• Turkish: naif (tr)

Anagrams

• naevi, navie, nævi

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Danish

Adjective

naive

1. plural and definite of naiv

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Esperanto

Adverb

naive

1. naively

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German

Adjective

naive

1. inflected form of naiv

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Swedish

Adjective

naive

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of naiv.