Buck Naked and Butt Naked

Buck Naked and Butt Naked Buck Naked and Butt Naked Buck Naked and Butt Naked By Maeve Maddox A reader has two questions about the idiom â€Å"buck naked†: 1. When did people start saying, â€Å"butt naked† instead of â€Å"buck naked†? 2. What does â€Å"buck naked† mean, anyway? buck naked, adjective: completely unclothed. In Old English, the word that is now spelled buck referred to a male deer. Later, the word also came be applied to the male of other species. For example, buck is the term for the male of the following animals: deer goat kangaroo mouse rabbit rat reindeer squirrel Not surprisingly, buck became a slang term for a male of the human species. The earliest OED citation for buck used to mean man or fellow is dated 1303. In the eighteenth century, buck was popular slang for a man who attended plays and other fashionable social events to be seen and admired. In Australia, buck was used to refer to male aborigines. In the United States, buck referred to both American Indians and men of African descent. Examples of this usage may be found in nineteenth-century entries in the US Congressional Record. Although various explanations have been offered, no one can say with certainty how the word buck came to be attached to naked. The earliest evidence of â€Å"buck naked† on the Ngram Viewer, which is based on printed sources, appears in 1914. â€Å"Butt naked† comes along in 1924, but doesn’t make much of a showing until 1980, when it begins to soar. Judging by a Google search, the newer term has taken over, at least on the Web: â€Å"buck naked†: 509,000 results   â€Å"butt naked†: 2,290,000 results    I prefer â€Å"buck naked,† because â€Å"butt-naked† strikes my ear as excessively vulgar. I cannot, however, argue that one is â€Å"more correct† than the other. Both expressions mean exactly the same thing. Both have found acceptance in colloquial speech. Neither, however, has a place in formal English. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:50 Handy Expressions About Hands3 Types of HeadingsEspecially vs. Specially