Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having no clothing on the body; nude.
  • adjective Having no covering, especially the usual one.
  • adjective Devoid of vegetation, trees, or foliage.
  • adjective Being without addition, concealment, disguise, or embellishment.
  • adjective Devoid of a specified quality, characteristic, or element.
  • adjective Exposed to harm; vulnerable.
  • adjective Not enclosed in an ovary.
  • adjective Unprotected by scales.
  • adjective Lacking a perianth.
  • adjective Without leaves or pubescence.
  • adjective Zoology Lacking outer covering such as scales, fur, feathers, or a shell.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Said of a vessel's bottom when her copper is stripped off.
  • Unclothed; without clothing or covering; bare; nude: as, a naked body or limb.
  • Without covering; especially, without the usual or customary covering; exposed; bare: as, a naked sword.
  • Specifically— In botany, noting flowers without a calyx, ovules or seeds not in a closed ovary (gymnosperms), stems without leaves, and parts destitute of hairs.
  • In zoology, noting mollusks when the body is not defended by a calcareous shell.
  • In entomology, without hairs, bristles, scales, or other covering on the surface.
  • Open to view.
  • Mere; bare; simple.
  • Having no means of defense or protection against an enemy's attack, or against other injury; unarmed; exposed; defenseless.
  • Bare; unprovided; unfurnished; destitute.
  • In music, noting the harmonic interval of a fifth or fourth, when taken alone.
  • In law, unsupported by authority or consideration: as, a naked overdraft; a naked promise.
  • Synonyms Uncovered, undressed.
  • Unprotected, unsheltered, unguarded.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having no clothes on; uncovered; nude; bare
  • adjective Having no means of defense or protection; open; unarmed; defenseless.
  • adjective Unprovided with needful or desirable accessories, means of sustenance, etc.; destitute; unaided; bare.
  • adjective Without addition, exaggeration, or excuses; not concealed or disguised; open to view; manifest; plain.
  • adjective Mere; simple; plain.
  • adjective (Bot.) Without pubescence; ; bare, or not covered by the customary parts, as a flower without a perianth, a stem without leaves, seeds without a pericarp, buds without bud scales.
  • adjective (Mus.) Not having the full complement of tones; -- said of a chord of only two tones, which requires a third tone to be sounded with them to make the combination pleasing to the ear.
  • adjective a bed the occupant of which is naked, no night linen being worn in ancient times.
  • adjective the eye alone, unaided by eyeglasses, or by telescope, microscope, or other magnifying device.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) See Hydromedusa.
  • adjective (Carp.) the timberwork which supports a floor.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) a nudibranch.
  • adjective (Bot.) a large rhamnaceous tree (Colibrina reclinata) of Southern Florida and the West Indies, having a hard and heavy heartwood, which takes a fine polish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of nake.
  • adjective Not wearing any clothes; without clothing on the genitals or female nipples.
  • adjective Glib, without decoration, put bluntly.
  • adjective Unprotected; (by extension) without a condom.
  • adjective Uncomfortable; as if missing something important.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (of the eye or ear e.g.) without the aid of an optical or acoustical device or instrument
  • adjective completely unclothed
  • adjective lacking any cover
  • adjective having no protecting or concealing cover
  • adjective devoid of elaboration or diminution or concealment; bare and pure

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English nacod; see nogw- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See nake (verb)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English naked, from Old English nacod ("naked"), from Proto-Germanic *nakwadaz, from Proto-Indo-European *nogʷó- (“naked”). Cognate with Scots nakit, nakkit ("naked"), Dutch naakt ("naked"), German nackt ("naked"), Danish nøgen ("naked"), Swedish naken ("naked"), Icelandic nakinn ("naked"). Related also to Old English nacian ("to strip of clothes, undress"). More at nake.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The word naked was originally a past participle; the naked man was the man who had undergone a process of naking, that is, of stripping or peeling (you used the verb of nuts and fruit). Time out of mind the naked man has seemed to our ancestors not the natural but the abnormal man; not the man who has abstained from dressing but the man who has been for some reason undressed.

    CS Lewis, The Four Loves

    May 10, 2008

  • Was CS Lewis a nudist?!

    May 11, 2008

  • I don't believe so. If you read him carefully, and the full context makes it clearer, he's effectively saying that being dressed is our natural state, and that it takes a verb (i.e. an action) to render us undressed and therefore naked. So I doubt he would have had much sympathy for "naturists", whom I understand consider nudity to be the natural state.

    May 11, 2008

  • As a wannabe nudist, I read "time out of mind..." as perjorative of our ancestors.

    May 11, 2008

  • Naked

    on a naked horse

    in pouring rain!

    - Kobayashi Issa

    March 4, 2010

  • ah, equine eroticism--where would classical poetry be without you?

    March 4, 2010

  • I'm all for nudism but not where horses are concerned.

    March 4, 2010

  • I thought naking was a synonym of yarbing. Go figure.

    March 4, 2010

  • Ew. Seeing the word "naking" after reading about horses makes me of knackers.

    I have to stop thinking about this before I make some joke about knackerphilia.

    November 10, 2010