semi-naïf

A form of semi-naive — Partially naive.

Meanings

adjectivesemi-naïf (comparative more semi-naïf, superlative most semi-naïf)

comparative more semi-naïf · superlative most semi-naïf

  1. alternativeAlternative form of semi-naive.

    Other Australian work which impressed included the semi-naïf paint-[…]

    1986, Studio International, page 44
    5 more examples

    Marc Chagall comes from Vitebsk but has nothing Jewish about him in looks, in manner, in any peculiarities. Yet he paints almost nothing but ghetto life—and in a semi-naïf, rather childish fashion, does it with enough feeling to “put it over.”

    1978, Sidney Alexander, Marc Chagall: A Biography, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 460

    Drawings of a simple, semi-naïf type also stress the homely, almost accidental tenor of the re-tellings.

    1979, Growing Point, page 3509

    Up some steps behind the hotel the All Saints church was built in 1620–30 and is now being restored; it has new paintings in a nice light style and semi-naïf icons.

    2002, Tim Burford, Georgia with Armenia, Bradt Travel Guides, →ISBN, page 128

    Rebeyrolle’s semi-naïf, deliberately ugly and pathetic portraits, still lifes and rude examinations of the bestial world were hailed as a vital example of revelatory realism, admired in France as in England for their durable construction of quotidian objects and bulky bodies, suggesting the necessity of a committed return to drawing and modelling after the Old Masters.

    2009, Natalie Adamson, Painting, Politics and the Struggle for the École de Paris, 1944–1964, Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 136

    Politi had actually made multiethnicity a focus of his art (before it became the norm) and showed a penchant for expressions of ethnically costumed festive celebration in a simple, even semi-naïf vein (appropriate to children’s literature).

    2014, Luisa Del Giudice, “Afterword: Personal Reflections on the Watts Towers Common Ground Initiative”, in Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts: Art, Migrations, Development, New York, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, →LCCN, page 344
Cite this entry
APA

semi-naïf. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/semi-na%C3%AFf

MLA

“semi-naïf.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/semi-na%C3%AFf. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “semi-naïf,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/semi-na%C3%AFf.

Source: semi-naïf on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.