lack of sophistication or worldliness

Native simplicity; unaffected plainness or ingenuousness; artlessness.

Natural simplicity in speech or action.

Native unaffected simplicity and ingenuousness.

Native simplicity; unaffected plainness.

She paused before she answered, with the naivete of a child six years old,- I see now why I mastered Blanche, who will not make friends with any one else: I love Blanche. – Kenelm Chillingly, Complete by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

They took their rides together openly and without concealment, relating their adventures afterwards to Aunt Viney with a naivete and frankness that dreamed of no suppression. – The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories by Bret Harte

" 'T is an impossibility," responded the man, earnestly, though he was unable to keep from slightly smiling at the unconscious naivete of the question. – Janice Meredith by Paul Leicester Ford

Her naivete, her simplicity, her ignorance of social conventions and of the worldly wisdom which to Mrs. Mavick was the sum of all knowledge misled her mother as to her power of discernment and her strength of character. – That Fortune by Charles Dudley Warner Last Updated: February 22, 2009

Rouletabille saw all around him great children who amused themselves with unbelievable naivete and who drank in a fashion more unbelievable still. – The Secret of the Night by Gaston Leroux

" Ah, commandant," she cried, with all the naivete of passion, " he was not accountable for that; he was deceived by a bad woman, Charette's mistress, who would, I do believe, drink the blood of the Blues." – The Chouans by Honore de Balzac

With the gaiety and naivete of the Frenchwoman, Catharine possessed, when occasion called it into action, a thoughtful and well- regulated mind, abilities which would well have repaid the care of mental cultivation; but of book- learning she knew nothing beyond a little reading, and that but imperfectly, acquired from her father's teaching. – Lost in the Backwoods by Catherine Parr Traill

Far from attempting to hide or ignore the struggle by which she and her husband had attained their present position, she referred with the utmost naivete to incidents in her career, while the whole table paused to listen. – The Complete PG Edition of The Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

The reports these pioneers brought back of the naivete, politeness, and gullibility of the natives, and the cheapness of existence in their cities, caused a general exodus from the western to the eastern hemisphere. – Worldly Ways and Byways by Eliot Gregory

" I am sure I wish you were," said Evelyn, with great naivete; " you would suit Lord Vargrave better than I should." – Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I by Edward Bulwer Lytton

He presently confided to me, with infinite naivete and ingenuousness, that, judging from my personal appearance, he should not have thought me the writer that he in his generosity reckoned me to be. – The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

But her letters ended always with the naivete of a child. – Kenny by Leona Dalrymple

She nodded, adding with the same cold naivete, " It ain't much!" – Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories by Bret Harte

But we are specially his debtor for adventures on our own continent, narrated with naivete and vigor by a pen as direct and clear- cutting as the sword with which he shaved off the heads of the Turks, and for one of the few romances that illumine our early history. – Captain John Smith by Charles Dudley Warner Last Updated: February 22, 2009

And the princess' naivete played into the hands of the Widow's malice. – The White Knight: Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell and Marti Johan d'Galba

The list of rivers would be read for the islands, and the islands for the rivers, quite indifferently, and with entertaining naivete. – The Confessions of a Beachcomber by E J Banfield