Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definitions: Naive |
NaiveAdjective1. Marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience; "a teenager's naive ignorance of life"; "the naive assumption that things can only get better"; "this naive simple creature with wide friendly eyes so eager to believe appearances". 2. Lacking experience of life; "a callow youth of seventeen". 3. Lacking sophistication. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "naive" was first used: 1654. (references) |
| Domain | Definitions |
Computing | Naive adj. 1. Untutored in the perversities of some particular program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the appropriate sense). This trait is completely unrelated to general maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical user'. 2. Said of an algorithm that doesn't take advantage of some superior but advanced technique, e.g., the bubble sort. It may imply naivete on the part of the programmer, although there are situations where a naive algorithm is preferred, because it is more important to keep the code comprehensible than to go for maximum performance. "I know the linear search is naive, but in this case the list typically only has half a dozen items." Compare brute force. Source: Jargon File. |
Medicine | Used to describe an individual who has never taken a certain drug or class of drugs(e. g. , AZT-naive, antiretroviral-naive), or to refer to an undifferentiated immune system cell. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| NA | English | Naive estimate/forecast | Statistics |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: NaiveSynonyms: callow (adj), inexperienced (adj), naif (adj), unsophisticated (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: sophisticated (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Artlessness | Adjective: artless, natural, pure, native, confiding, simple, lain, inartificial, untutored, unsophisticated, ingenu, unaffected, naive; sincere, frank; open, open as day; candid, ingenuous, guileless; unsuspicious, honest; innocent; Arcadian; undesigning, straightforward, unreserved, aboveboard; simple-minded, single-minded; frank-hearted, open-hearted, single-hearted, simple-hearted. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Naive |
| English words defined with "naive": adorable ♦ boy scout ♦ chaja, Chauna torquata, conjuring trick ♦ deception ♦ endearing ♦ fleeceable ♦ green, gullible ♦ illusion ♦ legerdemain, lovely ♦ magic, magic trick ♦ naif, naive realism, naively ♦ pastel, primitive ♦ trick ♦ winsome. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "naive": bullschildt ♦ Interleukin-2 ♦ Jeff K. ♦ naive user ♦ ones complement ♦ padded cell. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Naive" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. German (naively, unsophisticatedly). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? (The Godfather; writing credit: Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo.) Naive, but insightful. (Batman Forever; writing credit: Bob Kane; Lee Batchler) Sometimes when a patient says something so competely naive, I find that my own laughter just isn't enough. (Ally McBeal; writing credit: Henri Vernes) Vivian, you are so naive. You would believe Will if he told you that he were some big rap star, whose album just went platinum! (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; writing credit: Hisao Ohkawa; Kaoru Umeno) They're so naive. (On the Beach; writing credit: Nevil Shute; John Paxton) | |
Lyrics | When I was still quite naive ("You're So Vain"; performing artist: Carly Simon) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Western World Naive I (1984) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
 | Spit; joke; childish; childlike; foolish; frivolous; infantile; infantine; juvenile; kid stuff; naive; pedomorphic; petty; prekindergarten; puerile; silly; unsophisticated; young; youthful; immature. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Last Chance To See | Douglas Adams | I suddenly felt, well, terribly old as I watched a mudskipper hopping along with what now seemed to me like a wonderful sense of hopeless, boundless naive optimism. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Paul Burrell | I was. How naive could I be to think the police would not come to my door. They did come to my door and they found more than they should have. |
Ross Perot | Well, in Texas, where, you know, the odds are that we wouldn't be, we all thought we were. So maybe we were naive. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Naive" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Naive" is used about 770 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 770 | 8,931 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "naive": naive fallacy ♦ naive realism ♦ naive user. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "naive": naive-political. | |
Ending with "naive": over-naive. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
naive | 83 |
naive art | 27 |
girl naive | 6 |
naive painting | 5 |
art even kunst naive | 4 |
lyrics naive | 4 |
naive teen | 3 |
bayes naive | 3 |
art art handle naive | 3 |
define naive | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "naive"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | غر (artless, calf's, callow, child, decoy, half-witted, inexperienced, raw, rude, stranger, unskilled, young), ساذج (artless, credulous, drip, gaga, gimp, green, guileless, gullible, honest, ingenuous, innocent, mug, ninny, oafish, pastoral, patsy, platitudinous, primitive, provincial, silly, simple, unsophisticated, untutored, unworldly), بسيط (attic, chaste, crude, down to earth, elementary, homely, honest, innocent, low-browed, lowly, mere, modest, natural, pastoral, petty, plain, primitive, provincial, rustic, silly, simple, simple minded, sparing, straightforward, unaffected, unpretentious, unsophisticated, unvarnished, with distortion), برئ (angelic, artless, blameless, clear, guileless, guiltless, harmless, honest, inculpable, ingenuous, innocent, pure, simple, starry eyed, white). (various references) | |
Chinese | 天真 (artless, innocent). (various references) | |
Danish | behandlingsnaiv (inexperienced). (various references) | |
Dutch | naïef (inexperienced, naïf, naïve, naif). (various references) | |
Esperanto | naiva (na@f, na@ve, naif). (various references) | |
Finnish | hoitamaton (inexperienced, uncared for, unkempt, unkept, weed-grown). (various references) | |
French | naïf (naïf, naïve, naif). (various references) | |
German | naiv (artless, dewy-eyed, greenly, gullible, ingenuous, ingenuously, naïf, naïve, naively, primitive, unsophisticated). (various references) | |
Greek | παρθένος (inexperienced, maiden, virgin). (various references) | |
Hungarian | gyermeteg (babyish, childlike, infantile, infantine, naïve). (various references) | |
Indonesian | tak dibuat-buat. (various references) | |
Italian | naive (inexperienced), ingenuo (artless, brainless, childlike, guileless, gullible, ingenue, ingenuous, naïve, oafish, simple minded). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | "朴 (homeliness, honest, rustic simplicity, simple, unsophisticated). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ナイーブ , ぼくとつ (artlessness, rugged honesty, simple, unaffected, unsophisticated), あまい (easy-going, fond of, generous, indulgent, overly optimistic, soft on, sweet), じゅ"ぼく (homeliness, honest, rustic simplicity, simple, unsophisticated). (various references) | |
Korean | 치졸한. (various references) | |
Manx | credjalagh (credulous). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | aivenay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | ingénuo (callow, candid, dupe, fool, green, gullible, ingenuity, ingenuous, naivety, non payment, outage, shirt-sleeve, simple, unsophisticated, unsuspicious, verdant). (various references) | |
Russian | наивный (innocent, naпve, naif, simple, untutored). (various references) | |
Spanish | naive (inexperienced), ingenuo (guileless, harmless, ingenuous, innocent, inoffensive, naïve, simple minded, unoffending). (various references) | |
Swedish | naiv (green, ingenuous, innocent, naïf, naïve, naif, obvious, simple, simplistic, unsophisticated), godtrogen (confiding, confinding, credulous, naïve, simple, simple minded, unsuspecting). (various references) | |
Thai | ซื่อ (ทั้งการพู"และการกระทำ). (various references) | |
Turkmen | mцn. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | ngây thơ (fond), khờ khạo (soft-headed), chất phác ngờ nghệch. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | nativus. (various references) |
| Old French | 900-1400 | naif. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "naive": naively, naiveness, naivenesses, naiver, naives, naivest, naivete, naivetes, naiveties, naivety. (additional references) | |
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"Naive" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: aive, Ananieva, aniv, anove, faive, haive, knaive, maive, naaf, Nabie, nadie, Nadv, naevae, naide, naie, naiea, naieve, naiive, naile, naire, nairver, naise, naiv, naiver, naivi, naivte, naize, Naizet, nalive, Nanven, napive, Nasif, navea, Naveh, navek, Navet, navi, Navid, navie, navied, navke, navo, Nayee, nayle, Nciv, Neeva, Neeve, neige, Neiva, neive, Neuva, neuve, Nevia, Ngarivue, niae, niaf, niaive, niav, niave, niev, nieve, niv, niva, Nivc, nive, nivea, niveau, niviv, nivo, nivr, Njie, noibe, nuovi, snaiv. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: naevi. | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-i-n-v" | |
-1 letter: nave, nevi, vain, vane, vein, vena, vina, vine. | |
-2 letters: ain, ane, ani, ave, nae, van, via, vie. | |
-3 letters: ae, ai, an, en, in, na, ne. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-i-n-v" | |
+1 letter: alevin, alvine, invade, naiver, naives, native, navies, ravine, savine, vahine, vainer, valine, veinal, venial, vineal. | |
+2 letters: alevins, anviled, deaving, deviant, evading, evanish, evasion, flavine, heaving, invaded, invader, invades, inweave, javelin, leaving, naevoid, naively, naivest, naivete, naivety, natives, navvies, ravelin, ravined, ravines, reaving, savines, vaccine, vaginae, vahines, vainest, valines, vauntie, vawntie, vealing, venatic, ventail, vermian, vervain, vinasse, vinegar, vintage, weaving. | |
+3 letters: agentive, anvilled, avenging, aventail, averring, aversion, averting, avianize, avidness, behaving, bivalent, cavatine, cleaving, conative, davening, deviance, deviancy, deviants, divalent, donative, enactive, enravish, enviable, enviably, envisage, evasions, flavines, gaveling, gingivae, grievant, havening, havering, inactive, innovate, interval, invaders, invasive, inviable, invocate, inweaved, inweaves, javelina, javelins, leavings, naivetes, natively, navicert, navigate, negative, novalike, overlain, pavonine, raveling, ravelins, ravening, reinvade, repaving, sanative, sheaving, sleaving, spavined, univalve, unvaried, unviable, vaccinee, vaccines, vaginate, vainness, valencia, valerian, valeting, valiance, vanished, vanisher, vanishes, vanitied, vanities, variance, veganism, velamina, venality, venation, venetian, venially, ventails, veratrin, veronica, vervains, vesicant, vesuvian, vexation, vibrance, vicenary, vicinage, vinasses, vinegars, vinegary, vineyard, vinifera, vintager, vintages, vitamine, voidance, wavering, waviness. | |
+4 letters: achieving, advecting, advection, adventive, adverting, agentives, aliveness, anchovies, antinovel, antivenin, ascensive, attentive, aventails, averaging, aversions, avianized, avianizes, avifaunae, avirulent, avoidance, beavering, bereaving, biconcave, bivalents, carnivore, caveating, caverning, clavering, cravening, deleaving, depraving, devaluing, deviances, deviating, deviation, donatives, elevating, elevation, emanative, engraving, enslaving, envisaged, envisages, evangelic, evanished, evanishes, evocation, expansive, galvanise, galvanize, gavelkind, gavelling, genitival, grapevine, graveling, grievance, grievants, heaviness, incurvate, innervate, innovated, innovates, intervale, intervals, invalided, invertase, inviolate, invocated, invocates, inweaving, javelinas, javelined, juvenilia, knaveries, laveering, leavening, levanting, leviathan, liveryman, marveling, naiveness, naiveties, narrative, navicerts, navigable, navigated, navigates, negatived, negatives, nervation, nonnative, nonviable, normative, novitiate, novocaine, overawing, overtrain, pervading, pervasion, plaintive, quavering, ravelings, ravelling, ravenings, reavowing, reinvaded, reinvades, reshaving, revaluing, revamping, revealing, reweaving, riverbank, shaveling, slavering, sylvanite, tantivies, tentative, traveling, trivalent, unadvised, univalent, univalves, universal, unlivable, unrivaled, unweaving, upheaving, vacancies, vaccinate, vaccinees, valencias, valencies, valentine, valerians, valiances, vandalise, vandalize, vanishers, vapidness, variances, varnished, varnisher, varnishes, veganisms, venations, venetians, venireman, ventifact, ventilate, veratrine, veratrins, vernalize, vernation, veronicas, versional, vesicants, vesuvians, vexations, vibrances, vicennial, vicinages, videoland, vigilance, vigilante, villenage, vinaceous, vindicate, vinegared, vineyards, viniferas, vintagers, vitamines, voidances, vulcanise, vulcanize. | |
+5 letters: activeness, adenoviral, adenovirus, adjunctive, advections, adventitia, adventives, advisement, aggrieving, ambivalent, animadvert, annotative, antinovels, antivenins, appointive, aventurine, avidnesses, avoidances, cadaverine, cantilever, canvaslike, caregiving, carnivores, connivance, constative, covariance, crevassing, cunctative, denotative, derivation, detonative, deviancies, deviations, devotional, dominative, drawknives, drivetrain, eigenvalue, elevations, eluviating, eluviation, enervating, enervation, engravings, enravished, enravishes, envisaging, equivalent, estivating, estivation, evacuating, evacuation, evaluating, evaluation, evanescing, evangelism, evangelist, evangelize, evanishing, evidential, evocations, excavating, excavation, exuviating, exuviation, galivanted, galvanised, galvanises, galvanized, galvanizer, galvanizes, gavelkinds, generative, grapevines, gravelling, grievances, harvesting, heavenlier, inactivate, inactively, inchoative, incubative, incurvated, incurvates, indicative, indurative, inevitable, inevitably, initiative, innervated, innervates, innovative, insolvable, interleave, intervales, interweave, invaginate, invalidate, invaluable, invariable, invariance, invasively, invertases, investable, inveteracy, inveterate, invigilate, invigorate, inviolable, irrelevant, jackknives, javelining, lavishness, leavenings, leveraging, leviathans, levigating, levigation, levitating, levitation, lifesaving, lovemaking, margravine, marvelling, narratives, nativeness, nativities, negatively, negativing, negativism, negativist, negativity, nervations, nominative, nondeviant, nonnatives, nonpassive, nonvintage, novaculite, novitiates, novocaines, overacting, overaction, overbaking, overdaring, overeating, overhating, overlading, overlaying, overpaying, overrating, oversaving, overstrain, overtaking, overtaxing, overtrains, palavering, papaverine, pavilioned, pervasions, prevailing, ravellings, ravishment, reavailing, reinvading, reinvasion, renovating, renovation, renovative, revanchism, revanchist, revelation, revocation, riverbanks, ruminative, savoriness, scavenging, serviceman, shavelings, shinleaves, sovranties, starveling, survivance, sylvanites, tentatives, timesaving, transitive, travelling, traversing, travertine, unachieved, uncreative, unenviable, unfavorite, univalents, univariate, universals, unraveling, unravished, unrivalled, unwavering, vacationed, vacationer, vaccinated, vaccinates, vagrancies, vainnesses, valentines, valiancies, vandalised, vandalises, vandalized, vandalizes, vanitories, vanquished, vanquisher, vanquishes, varnishers, vaticinate, vegetarian, vegetating, vegetation, velarizing, venalities, venenating, venerating, veneration, venialness, ventifacts, ventilated, ventilates, ventilator, veratrines, verdancies, vernalized, vernalizes, vernations, vernissage, vesicating, veterinary, vibrancies, vibraphone, vicariance, videolands, vigilances, vigilantes, villainess, villainies, villanella, villanelle, villenages, vindicable, vindicated, vindicates, vinegarish, vivandiere, vociferant, vulcanised, vulcanises, vulcanized, vulcanizer, vulcanizes, waveringly, wavinesses. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4E 61 69 76 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-. .- .. ...- . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001110 01100001 01101001 01110110 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)N a i v e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004E 0061 0069 0076 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4867758871 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Sounds 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Spoken | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
