English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /'neɪkɪd/

Adjective

naked ‎(comparative more naked, superlative most naked)

1. Not wearing any clothes.

   She was as naked as the day she was born.

2. (obsolete) Lacking some clothing; clothed only in underwear.
   • 1680, James Gordon, History of Scots Affairs:

     For no body would staye to give them intelligence, the countrey people running evry wher out of ther waye, and some of them flying out of ther bedds nacked in their shirts, who runne to the neerest rockes on the sea syde; so formidable was ther very name.

3. Glib, without decoration, put bluntly.

   This is the naked truth.

   The naked facts lay there on the table, enclosed within the files.

4. Characterized by the nakedness of the people concerned or to whom the described noun is attributed.
   • 1666, Samuel Pepys, Diary:

     So here I went the first time into a naked bed, only my drawers on; and did sleep pretty well: but still both sleeping and waking had a fear of fire in my heart, that I took little rest.

   • 1788, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

     The satirical historian has not blushed to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was not ashamed to exhibit in the theatre.

5. (obsolete) Unarmed.
   • 1727, Daniel Defoe, An essay on the history and reality of apparitions:

     You an’t even with me yet, ſays ſhe; I ſcorn as much to take up a Sword againſt a Naked Man; as you ought to have ſcorn’d, if you had been a Gentleman, to give the Lie to a Woman.

6. Unaided, unaccompanied.
   • 1579, William Wilkinson, A confutation of certaine articles deliuered vnto the Familye of Loue:

     Christ commeth not bare or naked, but clothed and accompanied with all his mercies.

   • 2001, Asger Aaboe, Episodes From the Early History of Astronomy:

     If all celestial bodies visible to the naked eye are thus mapped on the celestial sphere, it becomes apparent that the vast majority of them remain in fixed patterns with respect to each other: They form recognizable constellations that, in turn, remain unchangeably distributed.

7. Unprotected, uncovered; (by extension) without a condom.

   The tendrils of the naked flame stretched into the skies.

   I entered her naked and came in her too.

8. (literary) Resourceless, poor, lacking means.
   • 1480, anonymous, printed by William Caxton, Cura Sapientiæ; or, The Court of Sapience:

     I knowe my self moost naked in al artes, / My comune ne vulgare eke moost interupte, / And I conversaunte and born in the partes / Where my natyfe langage is moost corrupt, / And with most sundry tonges myxt and rupte.

   • c. 1625, John Fletcher, The Humorous Lieutenant:

     I am a poor Man, naked, / Yet ſomething for Remembrance; four a piece, Gentlemen, / And ſo my Body where you pleaſe.

9. (with “of”) Lacking or devoid of something.
   • 1581, Walter Haddon and John Foxe, trans. James Bell, Against Ierome Osorius Byshopp of Siluane in Portingall and Against His Slaunderous Inuectiues: An Aunswere Apologeticall: for the Necessary Defence of the Euangelicall Doctrine and Veritie:

     Freewill is made naked of all maner merite.

   • 1619, Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrim: Microcosmus, or the Historie of Man, relating the Wonders of his Generation, Vanities in his Degeneration, Necessity of His Regeneration:

     Their eyes were opened to ſee their nakedneſſe: naked they were of diuine protection and fauor, naked of Angelicall guard and cuſtodie, naked of Humane puritie and holineſſe, naked of dutifull subiection from the rebelling Creatures;

   • 1969, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist:

     I have spent about three weeks at home since Dec 1. As always, I am naked of good article ideas—despite my constant involvement with good subjects.

10. (obsolete) Blank, clean, empty.
    • c. 1660, Robert South, Sermon on John vii. 17.:

      For in the first it finds the mind naked and unprepossessed with any former notions, and so easily and insensibly gains upon the assent, grows up with it, and incorporates into it.

11. (of land, rocks, or plants) Barren, having no foliage, unvegetated.
12. Uncomfortable or vulnerable, as if missing something important.

    I feel naked without my mobile phone.

13. (of food or other consumer products) Without any additives, or without some component that would usually be included.

    a naked burrito (i.e. one without a tortilla)

14. (physics) Of a singularity, not hidden within an event horizon and thus observable from other parts of spacetime.

Synonyms

• bare, nude, starkers, unclad, unclothed, butt-naked, bare-assed, in one's birthday suit, showing skin
• See also Wikisaurus:nude

• (without a condom): Wikisaurus:condomless

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

See nake (verb)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /neɪkt/

Verb

naked

1. simple past tense and past participle of nake

Anagrams

• Kaden, knead