| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| bare-naked |
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| SYLLABICATION: | bare-na·ked |
| PRONUNCIATION: | bâr n k d, -n kd |
| ADVERB & ADJECTIVE: | Chiefly Northern U.S. With no clothes on. | | REGIONAL NOTE: | The chiefly Northern U.S. expression bare-naked illustrates the linguistic process of redundancy, not always acceptable in Standard English but productive in regional dialect speech. A redundant expression combines two words that mean the same thing, thereby intensifying the effect. The expression buck-naked, used chiefly in the South Atlantic and Gulf states, is not as clear as bare-naked with respect to its origin; buck is possibly an alteration of butt, “buttocks.” If so, bum-naked, heard in various parts of the country, and bare-ass(ed), attested especially in the Northeastern U.S., represent the same idea.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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