stark naked

English

Etymology

Middle English stert naked (steort nakt, sternaked, star naked); the first element is from Old English steort (“tail”). The change from "start-naked" to "stark-naked" was most likelily due to a misinterpretation of the phrase as being a way of saying "starkly naked" ("strongly naked, harshly naked").

Adjective

stark naked (not comparable)

Completely naked.

Synonyms

See Thesaurus:nude

Translations

completely naked

Bulgarian: чисто гол (čisto gol)
Catalan: conill (ca)
Faroese: spilnakin, blóðnakin, heilt nakin
Finnish: ilkosillaan (fi), ilkosen alasti (fi), ilkialasti
French: à poil (fr)
German: splitternackt (de), splitterfasernackt (de), fasernackt
Irish: tarnocht
Romanian: gol nap, gol pușcă, gol ca degetul
Spanish: en pelotas (es)
Swedish: spritt språngande naken
Welsh: noethlymun (cy)

Noun

stark naked (uncountable)

(slang, archaic) Raw gin.
Synonym: strip me naked
- 1870, Langford Cecil, Fenacre Grange, page 15:
  "Give us a glass of 'stark naked,' Job! This plaguey fog's well nigh choked me," said Rube, spluttering and coughing, and vituperating it.

References

John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

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