NAIF • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Naif

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Naif

noun

A naive or inexperienced person.

adjective

Marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience. Synonym: naive. "The naive assumption that things can only get better" , "This naive simple creature with wide friendly eyes so eager to believe appearances"

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"Naif" Quotes from Famous Books

... to be my naif astonishment to find these murderers, rogues, parricides, habitual forgers of bills of exchange, and so forth, every now and then writing to each other as "my dearest brother," "my dearest sister," and for months at a time living on the most amicable terms! With hands reeking with ...

— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the others—with him interest, delight in, enthusiasm for nature became absorption in her. Whereas other men have loved nature, it has been acutely remarked, Rousseau was in love with her. It was felicitously of him, rather than of Dupre or Corot, that the naif peasant inquired, "Why do you paint the tree; the tree is there, is it not?" And never did nature more royally reward allegiance to her than in the sustenance and inspiration she furnished for Rousseau's genius. ...

— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... this invincible naivete. Courtland bit his lip as the vision arose before him of this still more naif English admirer bringing hither, at Miss Sally's bidding, the tribute which she wished to place on the grave of an old lover to please a THIRD man. Meantime, she had put her two little hands behind her back in the simulated attitude of "a good girl," and was saying ...

— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... need have no difficulty in admitting that the majority of these romances do somewhat content themselves with incident, incident only, and incident not merely of a naif but of a stock kind, for their staple. There are striking situations, even striking phrases, here and there; there is plenty of variety in scene, and more than is sometimes thought in detail; but the motive-and-character-interest is rarely utilised as ...

— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... evident he also is a medium. Especially as he is very like Home in appearance. You remember Home—a fair-haired naif ...

— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

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