naively
Americanadverb
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in a way that shows a lack of experience, judgment, or information.
I'll just stretch the contents of my talks into a book, I thought naively, but after three years of hard work I’m still far from completing a manuscript.
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in a way that shows simplicity of character and the absence of artificiality or sophistication.
The ancient historian Herodotus marks a transitional stage in cultural anthropology, between naively artless chronicle writing and scientific research.
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in a way not influenced by previous participation in a scientific experiment or awareness of its real purpose.
Participants behave naively and more naturally if they don’t know the true nature or objective of the study.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of naively
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I naively thought the Saunter would be the same.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
County had fallen in 2024 not to 100 or so, as I naively hoped, but to 2,208.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
And yet it represented a floor which I naively believed democratic accountability could not fall beneath without consequence.
From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2026
Her barrister said Pinckard's "giving of cakes and sweets" was "naively and stupidly trying to make the lives of prisoners somewhat better".
From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2026
I naively assumed that war occurred in far-off places with hard to pronounce names, not in Long Beach.
From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
