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naked

UK/ˈneɪkɪd/US/ˈneɪkɪd/
adjectiveA23 meaningsVery common — you will meet it every day · #901 of 15,258leans spoken

Naked means wearing no clothes at all. Naked, half naked, sleep naked. It is the plain word, said in two syllables — NAY-kid — which surprises people who expect it to rhyme with baked.

Nude is the word used in art and in photography, and it is more neutral; bare is used of parts rather than of whole people — bare feet, bare arms. Two important extensions: the naked eye means seeing without a telescope or microscope, and it is a fixed phrase. And naked before an abstract noun means undisguised: naked ambition, naked aggression, a naked attempt to win votes.

Definitions of naked

  1. 1adjectivenakedWearing no clothes.A2

    “The children ran naked into the sea.”

    synonyms: bare, nude, undressed

  2. 2adjectivecoveredNot covered or protected.B2

    “A naked flame near that is a bad idea.”

  3. 3adjectiveundisguisedUndisguised, said of a feeling or a motive.C1

    “It was naked self-interest and nobody pretended otherwise.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

naked is a state of being uncovered.

Also accepted in games: bare, nude

Phrases it lives in

  • the naked eye — sight without a telescope, microscope or glasses

Where it comes from

Old English nacod comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning naked that runs almost unchanged across Europe — Latin nudus, Sanskrit nagna, Russian nagoy. It is one of the most stable words in the whole family, which suggests nobody ever needed a new one.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *negʷ- — naked

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *nakwadaz

  3. Proto-West Germanic

    *nak(k)wad

  4. Old English

    nacod

  5. Middle English

    naked

  6. English, today

    naked

From Middle English naked, from Old English nacod, from Proto-West Germanic nak(k)wad, from Proto-Germanic nakwadaz, from Proto-Indo-European negʷ- (“naked”). a doublet of nude (remotely).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Adjectives

Practise this word

naked in the wild

  • The word naked in this context refers to the fact that this hold does not involve the use of a keikogi ("gi") or training uniform.

    Rear naked choke

  • Recent studies have shown that the rear-naked choke takes an average of 8.9 seconds to render an opponent unconscious, regardless of the grip that is used.

    Rear naked choke

  • According to reports, most naked college parties are sex-free.

    Naked party

  • The spread of naked parties has sparked international controversy.

    Naked party

  • The majority might possess a single piece of cloth that was wrapped or tied to cover the lower body; slaves might be naked.

    Nudity

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.