Meaning
1 senses(archaic, slang, uncountable)Raw gin.
Examples
18 sentencesTom was standing there stark naked.
Tom was stark naked.
Tom sunbathes stark naked.
I was stark naked.
I feel stark naked.
Origin
From Middle English stert naked (steort nakt, sternaked, star naked); the first element isFrom Middle English stert naked (steort nakt, sternaked, star naked); the first element is from Old English steort (“tail”). The change from "start-naked" to "stark-naked" was most likely by folk etymology due to a misinterpretation of the phrase as being a way of saying "starkly naked" ("strongly naked, harshly naked"). The opposite change has shifted buck naked to butt naked in colloquial modern English.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Synonyms
1 synonymsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.