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Word of the DayThursday, June 16, 2005

naif

\nah-EEF; ny-\ , adjective:

Naive.

noun:

A naive or inexperienced person.

See the full Dictionary.com entry |See Synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Quotes:

It is only very naif critics who think that all one's influences must be contemporary.

-- John Fowles, Wormholes

Their money-grubbing game: they feign a tragic past and prey on the sympathies of unsuspecting naifs, fishing for bank account numbers or photocopies of passports.

-- Nathalie Atkinson, "Con heir", Toronto Life, September 1, 2003

Believing nothing, the skeptic is blind; believing everything, the naif is lame.

-- "We Are All Wayfarers On the Waves of Time", Hinduism Today, November 30, 1998

But underneath their differences, they're variations on a theme: one a naif, one worldly-wise who learns from the naif.

-- Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, "Torched Songs", Palm Beach Post, September 15, 2000

Origin:

Naif comes from French, from Old French naif, "naive, natural, just born," from Latin nativus, "native, rustic," literally "born, inborn, natural," from Latin nativus, "inborn, produced by birth," from natus, past participle of nasci, "to be born."

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