na·if or na·ïf (nī-ēf', nä-) adj.
& n. Variants of naive.
na·ive or na·ïve (nī-ēv', nä-) adj.
Lacking worldly experience and understanding, especially:
Simple and guileless; artless: a child with a naive charm.
Unsuspecting or credulous: "Students, often bright but naive, bet—and lose—substantial sums of money on sporting events"(Tim Layden).
Not previously subjected to experiments: testing naive mice.
Not having previously taken or received a particular drug: persons naive to marijuana.
Showing or characterized by a lack of sophistication and critical judgment: "this extravagance of metaphors, with its naive bombast"(H.L. Mencken).
Not previously subjected to experiments: testing naive mice.
Not having previously taken or received a particular drug: persons naive to marijuana.
n. One who is artless, credulous, or uncritical.
[French naïve, feminine of naïf, from Old French naif, natural, native, from Latin nātīvus, native, rustic, from nātus, past participle of nāscī, to be born; see genə- in Indo-European roots.] na·ive'ly adv., na·ive'ness n.
Synonyms: These adjectives mean free from guile, cunning, or sham. Naive sometimes connotes a credulity that impedes effective functioning in a practical world: "this naive simple creature, with his straightforward and friendly eyes so eager to believe appearances" (Arnold Bennett). Simple stresses absence of complexity, artifice, pretentiousness, or dissimulation: "Those of highest worth and breeding are most simple in manner and attire" (Francis Parkman). "Among simple people she had the reputation of being a prodigy of information" (Harriet Beecher Stowe). Ingenuous denotes childlike directness, simplicity, and innocence; it connotes an inability to mask one's feelings: an ingenuous admission of responsibility. Unsophisticated indicates absence of worldliness: the astonishment of unsophisticated tourists at the tall buildings. Natural stresses spontaneity that is the result of freedom from self-consciousness or inhibitions: "When Kavanagh was present, Alice was happy, but embarrassed; Cecelia, joyous and natural" (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). Unaffected implies sincerity and lack of affectation: "With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works" (Jane Austen). Guileless signifies absence of insidious or treacherous cunning: a guileless, disarming look. Artless stresses absence of plan or purpose and suggests unconcern for or lack of awareness of the reaction produced in others: a child of artless grace and simple goodness.
[nah-eef] 
