| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| naif, naif (n.), naive, naive (adj.), naivete, naiveté, naïveté, naivety, naivety (n.) |
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| Pronounce the four words nei-EEF, nei-EEV, nei-EEV-TAI, and nei-EEV-i-tee, respectively. In French, naif (variant naïf) and naive (variant naïve) are respectively masculine and feminine forms of the adjective, but in English naive is now the only adjective, and it is no longer gender-distinctive: He’s naive about the danger, and so is she. Naif in English is now almost always and only a noun, meaning “a naive person”: His lack of experience marks him as a real naif. Naïveté (or naiveté or naivete) and naivety (or naïvety) are variant spellings of the abstract noun meaning “the quality or condition of being naive.” American English tends to omit the dieresis except in the abstract noun, for which naïveté is the most frequent spelling. | 1 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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