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stark-naked

American  
[stahrk-nay-kid] / ˈstɑrkˈneɪ kɪd /

adjective

  1. absolutely naked.


stark-naked British  

adjective

  1. Informal word: starkers. completely naked

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of stark-naked

1520–30; stark + naked; replacing start-naked ( start, Middle English; Old English steort tail; cognate with Dutch staart, Old High German sterz, Old Norse stertr )


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

From the steep Blue Mountains of the Great Dividing Range it speeds toward the stark-naked Nullarbor Plain.

From Time Magazine Archive

The next day some of Speke’s men were lured into the huts of the natives by an invitation to dinner, but, when they got them there, they stripped them stark-naked and let them go again.

From Great African Travellers From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley by William Henry Giles Kingston

But Malvina, remembering who was primarily responsible for the deposition of her plaster angel, and the substitution of a stark-naked boy, found it impossible to regard the culprit with anything but marked disfavour.

From Dry Fish and Wet Tales from a Norwegian Seaport by Anthon Bernhard Elias Nilsen

When it rains they are covered by their mats, but, as they are all stark-naked, the rain can do them no harm.

From Great African Travellers From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley by William Henry Giles Kingston

The party is composed of Bombay, my interpreter; Gaetano, the Goanese cook-boy; two Beluch soldiers; one Nakhuda or sea-captain, who sometimes wore a goat-skin; and twenty stark-naked savage sailors: twenty-six in all.

From What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile by John Hanning Speke

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