stark naked, a. (and n.)
[f. stark adv. 2; altered from the earlier start-naked.]
1. Of a person: Absolutely without clothing.
| 1530 Palsgr. 842/1 Starke bely naked, tout fin mere nud... Starke naked, tout fin nud. 1560 J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 356 They left them starcke naked. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. v. ii. 59 Rather on Nylus mudde Lay me starke-nak'd. 1771 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1778) I. 474 Both sexes go stark-naked. 1840 R. H. Dana Bef. Mast xvi. 44 The little children were running about among the huts, stark naked. 1913 Sir H. Johnston Pioneers Australia vii. 227 These stark-naked savages. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1601 Shakes. Twel. N. iii. iv. 274 Therefore on, or strippe your sword starke naked. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 268 ¶9, I came to my Mistress's Toilet this Morning, for I am admitted when her Face is stark naked. 1765 H. Walpole Let. to Miss A. Pitt 25 Dec., The rest of the room is stark naked. 1779 Warner in Jesse Selwyn & Contemp. (1844) IV. 246 A great stark-naked new house on an eminence, without a morsel of anything green about it. 1881 Athenæum 27 Aug. 267/2 This is the essential difficulty, stated in its simplest and stark-naked form. 1895 Dialect Notes (Amer. Dial. Soc. 1896) I. viii. 379 Naked, starknaked: of tea without milk or sugar,—pure, undiluted. |
2. n. Unadulterated spirit; esp. raw gin. slang.
| 1820 J. H. Reynolds Fancy (1906) 83 To take of Deady's bright stark naked A glass or so. 1830 Lytton Paul Clifford iv, His ‘bingo’ was unexceptionable; and as for his stark-naked, it was voted the most brilliant thing in nature. 1860 Hotten's Slang Dict. 227 Stark-naked,..raw gin. |