Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Chiefly British Slang Stark naked.
Wiktionary
- adj. chiefly UK, slang Completely nude.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (British informal) stark naked
Etymologies
- British slang, from 1923, combining (like a popular etymology) two meanings of stark ("strong, utterly; barren") with stark naked, which is from Old English steort ("tail"), referring to the tail-end (as in butt-naked). (Wiktionary)
- Alteration of stark naked. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“So - you might guess that I'm recommending 'starkers' as the best way to view today's seven pack of picks.”
Great Guelph Photos and Cool Blog Links by Creative Guelphites
“I was a nudist too as a kid, ran around outside starkers.”
“The flow of the river started taking them downstream, so I dropped the haversacks, ran down the riverside starkers, dived into the river and caught our clothes.”
“We are not allowed to walk around starkers (or wear Nazi uniforms of white pointy hats) 3.”
Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Tony Blair said: “I...
“Rosemary cannot comb her wet hair in front of the mirrors, because odds on someone will be standing next to her starkers, so she has to scurry home, hair tangled and flustered.”
“SIMON: About a person being dragged starkers from a Wal-Mart bathroom.”
“It had been quite another waking up starkers in the gray morning light.”
““Well you look like a bloody Pagan, sat up there, starkers!””
“Very witty as I try to imagine the author starkers up a burning bush – flaming tree rather!”
“We have a birthday suit, we are au naturel, we streak starkers through open fields and appear in the buff in locker rooms.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘starkers’.
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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UK - slang
chin wag, arse about, bollock, starkers, sweet Fanny Adams, skive, shufti, codswallop, rhyming slang, bollocks, nookie, skew-whiff and 208 more...
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Naked
Words relating to getting naked, being naked, the commonly naked, nakedness (partial or complete), and similar.
denude, strip, stripper, harlot, Cyprian, fancy woman, lady of pleasure, hooker, divest, unfrock, unclothe, disrobe and 115 more...
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Auslang
Australian colloquialisms, slang and unique lingual artifacts.
bludger, strewth, shonky, cow cockie, sickie, woop woop, chunder, furphy, buckley's chance, whinge, root barrier, nuff nuff and 8 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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British Cant & Slang, Old & New
Mostly, the cant words come from my reprint of Francis Grose's 1785 dictionary of 'The Vulgar Tongue', while the more modern slang has been found at various online sources, e.g. this online diction...
bog-standard, bumbaclot, brown trouser moment, bingo wings, bobfoc, babber, sweating, tantadlin tart, taplash, timber toe, tray trip, twiddle-diddles and 209 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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wot's all this, then?
Britishisms and Anglophilia - Mencken has a great, if dated, list of comparisons between the British and American words here.
aluminium, gobsmacked, queue, lift, bin, rubbish, navvy, ironmonger, treacle, parcel, constable, monkey-nut and 45 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for starkers.
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