birthday suit

American  

noun

1. bare skin; nakedness.

   They were sunbathing in their birthday suits.

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birthday suit British  

noun

1. informal a state of total nakedness, as at birth

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birthday suit Cultural  

1. To be “in one's birthday suit” is to be completely naked (as people are at birth).

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birthday suit Idioms  

1. Nakedness, as in The doorbell rang, and here I was in my birthday suit. In 18th-century Britain this term originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king's birthday. Later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, alluding to the condition of a newborn baby.

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Etymology

Origin of birthday suit

First recorded in 1745–55

Example Sentences

But once lined with hundred-dollar bills, the pockets of my birthday suit now jingle with grimy pennies and nickels.

From Salon • Feb. 10, 2014

The confetti that falls is black and the animal costumes have gone, and Coyne forgoes his birthday suit – worn during a recent US TV appearance – for an electric-blue jacket and, he complains, too-tight trousers.

From The Guardian • May 22, 2013

Unless I wanted to sign a five-year indenturement contract with some corporation, and that was about as appealing to me as rolling around in broken glass in my birthday suit.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

"And if Ginger Jukes, who is five foot six an' draws the beam at eleven stun in his birthday suit, why not Mr. Enery Arper?"

From The Sailor by Snaith, J. C.

As Pope writes: Or when from Court a birthday suit bestowed, Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.

From A Book of the Play Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character by Cook, Dutton