Naive

How to spell naive

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce naive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does naive mean?

1. adjectiveShowing a lack of experience, judgement, or worldly knowledge, often by trusting too readily.

Naive in a sentence

• It was naive of him to hand over the deposit without a signed contract.

• She was once naive enough to believe every email promising a refund.

Where does naive come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English from French naïve, the feminine form of naïf, which in turn descends from the Latin nativus meaning 'native, natural, or inborn'. That Latin adjective came from natus, the past participle of nasci 'to be born', so at its root the word literally points to the way a person is the day they are born: untaught and unspoiled. French shifted the sense from 'natural' toward 'artless, unaffected, and lacking worldly experience', and English adopted it in the seventeenth century with that flavour intact. The same nasci root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'native', 'nativity', and 'nature', which is a useful reminder of why the second syllable carries the soft vowel sound. English usually drops the French diaeresis in this spelling, leaving the bare 'naive' that trips writers who expect the vowels to behave more conventionally.

How the word is built

• naive (from Latin nativus: native, natural, inborn), the French form nourished the sense of untrained simplicity