Buck Naked Or Butt Naked

Buck Naked Or Butt Naked
Grammar, etymology, usage, and more, brought to you by Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman

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By Pat and Stewart

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July 13, 2020

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English , English language , Etymology , Expression , Grammar , Language , Linguistics , Phrase origin , Usage , Word origin , Writing

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Q: Thanks for your recent post about “butt” and “buttock.” How about “butt naked” and “buck naked”? Everyone I’ve asked claims “buck naked” is correct, but that makes no sense to me.
A: The older term is “buck naked,” first recorded just before World War I. The variant “butt naked” appeared half a century later.
Both versions are widely used, and neither should be considered incorrect. In fact, “butt naked” may be the more popular term today, as we’ll show later. No doubt many people feel, like you, that it makes more sense than “buck naked.”
Most standard dictionaries label the two adjectives “informal,” though a few regard the “butt” version as “slang.”
The Oxford English Dictionary , an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, labels them “colloquial,” meaning they’re more likely to be found in common speech than in formal English.
The dictionary gives them nearly identical definitions: “buck naked” is “completely without clothing; stark naked,” and “butt naked” is “completely naked, stark naked.” It says the two terms originated and are chiefly used in North America.
Over the years, etymologists and lexicographers have puzzled over the meaning of “buck” here. The OED suggests two possibilities:
It may be derived from the “buck” that means a male animal, like a deer or goat, a usage that dates back to Old English. Or it “may allude to the resemblance of the smooth and pale skin of the buttocks to buckskin.”
In a similar way, the dictionary points out, the word “buff” has been used since the 17th century as a colloquial term for a person’s bare skin (“in the buff” still means naked). The term “buff” originally referred to leather of a light brownish yellow called “buff-skin” or “buff leather.”
But the use of “buck” could have more sinister origins. It may perhaps allude to “the common practice of stripping slaves naked for inspection by potential buyers,” Oxford says.
In the 19th century, the dictionary notes, the noun “buck” was also a racial slur used for a male Native American, African-American, or Australian Aborigine.
However it developed, “buck naked” was first recorded in early 20th-century American newspapers. Keep in mind, though, that colloquial expressions are used in conversation long before they make it into print. This is the OED’ s oldest published example:
“A negro Adam, buck naked and believing himself to be in the Garden of Eden, was tried. … After hearing the evidence, the case was turned over to an insanity commission.” (The Daily Times Enterprise, Thomasville, GA, Dec. 6, 1913.)
And we found this example in an anecdote, rendered in black dialect, explaining the meaning of the word “tact”:
“ ’Tother day I’m visitin’ in a house an’ I goes to the bath room an’ opens de door—taint locked—and dere in de tub sits a woman, buck naked. Right away quick I slams dat door and yells: ‘ ’Scuse me, SUH!’ Dat’s tact!” (The Coconino Sun, Flagstaff, AZ, Dec. 19, 1919.)
The newer “butt naked” appeared several decades later. The OED’ s earliest example is presented as only a possible sighting:
“Leaping out to confront her bare-butt naked might lead to misunderstandings” (from Aaron Marc Stein’s 1959 novel Never Need an Enemy ).
The dictionary’s first definite example is from the late 1960s: “You read a National Geographic and there is some far off native girl standing butt-naked for the cameraman” (Melvin Van Peebles’s 1968 novel A Bear for the FBI ).
The Dictionary of American Regional English says that from 1966 to 1970 its field researchers recorded uses of “butt naked” in Arkansas and New York and “butt nekkid” in Michigan. However DARE doesn’t include the dated quotations.
The older term, “buck naked,” was more popular until recently. However, “butt naked” seems to be the more popular term today.
A recent search of the NOW Corpus, a database of 4.3 billion words in web-based newspapers and magazines from 2010 to the present, shows these results: “butt naked,” 314 examples; “buck naked,” 187.
A less up-to-date comparison of the two terms with Google’s Ngram Viewer, which tracks usage in digitized books, has “buck naked” still ahead as of 2010, but shows “butt naked” closing the gap.
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Alright, I’ve done it again. Done gone and geeked up and put all that English major stuff of mine to work blowing almost an entire day trying to, once and for all, determine which is “correct” between the phrases buck naked and butt naked.
For those looking for the fast and simple answer to use for a paper or other written work, here it is:
However, both terms are regularly used, and given the frequency of use of butt naked in recent times, an argument can be made that there is nothing wrong with using it either. It may still be in the slang category, but it is slang that is used by a lot of people.
So, that’s the fast summary of my article. Go with buck naked if you need to get a good grade on something that is going to be read by some spectacles-wearing old professor somewhere, or if you want the longer tradition on your side. In fact, if you really want a good grade, just use naked and skip the buck part altogether, since that’s not an essential adverb, and it’s practically slang too, just old slang. If you’re writing for yourself, for an audience that isn’t judging you for some stuffy reason, feel free to choose whichever you like better. The point of language is to convey meaning, and either will get your point across.
Alright, for the two people on the planet who will care beyond just getting it “right” on a paper or something, I spent some time nosing around the college library and in my Oxford English Dictionary . The OED does not have any listing for either term, which I confess was a surprise, because they do have some hyphenated buck-something type terms in there, and I have seen buck-naked written as a hyphenated word rather than a phrase. But, it wasn’t in there, nor was butt naked. So, I was left to my own devices. For the purpose of this article, I have divided the examination in half, with the first half of the article covering the OED trends and implications, and the second half looking at other research.
At first, I did the basic Google search to see what I could come up with. I found a few pretty cool conversations , but I couldn’t really find anything that satisfied me completely. This second conversation did have some meat to it, but there was too much reliance in the first part on desktop dictionaries using lots of words like “probably” and “possibly,” and on OED citations in the second that seem a bit like red herrings with more “probably” and “maybe” stuff in them. So, being the nerd I am, I set to the task of looking around to try to add further clarity. Since the “naked” part of these two phrases is not the issue, I decided to focus on the first word for each to try to find a “rightness” for one over the other. I may occasionally resort to humor or juvenile amusements along the way, but that can’t be helped, this is a research project that I did of my own accord and therefore subject to such things.
That said, I started with buck . In my opinion, there is no contest between the appropriateness or most likely evolution of the term. Again, in my opinion, buck naked is clearly the “correct” term. Here’s what I found:
http://www.flickr.com/people/98528214@N00
Buck in its original forms (buc and bucca) referred to a male deer (buc) and a male goat or “he-goat” (bucca) respectively, or at least all the best evidence and some reasonable thinking can determine. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the terms back to at least the 11 th Century, saying:
So far as the evidence goes, OE. Buc was used for the male deer, and bucca for the he-goat, but the instances are so few that it is far from certain that the words were thus distinguished in meaning. (“Buck,” sb1 Forms II: 609)
So, what we have on buck- as a prefix for naked- is the beginnings of an association with sex (gender), particularly male, and typically, as I will show, associated with breeding or sexual characteristic. The term goes on to have many definitions, but most are around this idea. Now, I’ll admit that the OED does not make this conclusion, but I don’t believe it is a long shot for me to draw this conclusion. But, you be the judge.
The first definition given is “The male of several animals” and goes on to list in sub-definitions the he-goat (used from 1000 CE through 1869), the male fallow-deer (1000 – 1774); the chamois; “any animal of the antelope kind, the male of the hare, the rabbit and the ferret” (1674-1904); “a ram” etc. (“Buck,” sb1 def 1 a-d II: 610). So, it’s not hard to see the association from long ago.
Further definitions include that of being a vaulting horse for gymnastics (something you “mount”) and of, perhaps ironically, of a “fop” or “a gay” (“Buck,” sb1def 2b II: 610).
"To the Friends of Negro Emancipation." [circa 1830]Alexander Rippingille (engraving: David Lucas) -
Moving down the massive evolution and list are references to behavior that is typically male, and typically youthful male, and also to persons of Indian (S. American “Indian”), “…any male Indian, Negro, or Aboriginal” (“Buck,” sb1 def 2d II: 610).
Now, I have not done exhaustive thesis-intensive research into the historical and cultural roots for this particular entry, but I have had enough ethnic studies coursework and overall literary and historical reading to venture that this use of buck was pronounced by whites as a condescending term. The first verifiable instance in English writing appears to be in 1800 and the last in 1964, this last a reference from Australia. I find it an interesting coincidence to see the term die out around the time of civil rights victories in the U.S., but, very possibly this is just that, a coincidence. Again, I am not declaring myself the keeper of English and diction, nor am I the person who can proclaim right and wrong regarding this term. I am merely reporting what I found and tossing in the odd observation here and there.
During slavery, and during the Western expansion, attitudes about white superiority are well documented, and the dehumanization of “the other” with animal-associated words is quite in keeping with that attitude. So were fears of sexual unions between “the other” and white women, fear of hyper-sexualized non-white men, and what seems to me a general sexual insecurity regarding the unknown or unfamiliar- which is what racial conflict is usually based in: what we don’t know and understand, we fear.
In addition, the term “savages” was often used to describe native peoples, and descriptions or images of them being scantily clad abounded. There was at least a visual association with near nudity in this particular use, even if there isn’t a definition written somewhere acknowledging it. I don’t believe it requires a great feat of imagination to at least consider that, given this at least historically circumstantial evidence, using a sexually charged masculine term like buck , one that can be easily connected to scantily clad tribesmen, is in keeping with all these ideas. The professor (Prof. Paul Brians), participating in the conversation that I linked up near the start of this article believes the same, and he is quoted thusly:
“The Cassell Dictionary of Slang lists "buck naked" as early 19th Century and speculates, as did one of your sources, on "buck" as a variation on "butt"; but until someone comes up with an actual early citation, I'll stand by my etymology as more likely. Lightly clad blacks and Indians were commonly called "bucks" in the 19th century.”
His point was that his etymology, like what I’m working at, is based in reasonable evidence, not speculations. This does not make me (or him) right, nor does it make the origins politically correct. My point is not to pass judgment on language formed long before me, or you, or to write some revisionist or apologist history of those origins or likely origins. My point is to point out that there is a line of obvious evidence that points to one version as being the original and therefore "correct" use, and a total absence of evidence pointing to the other when it comes to finding evidence of long and broad use in the English language as widely spoken over a long period of time.
But if that’s not enough for you, I have more. Buck is also defined as “To copulate with” albeit initially said of male rabbits and some other animals. (“Buck,” v2 II: 611). The quote given in the OED is fun, so I’m including it, “Konyes buck every moneth” which is taken from a 1530s text listed only as "Palsgr. 472/1," but it made me laugh. That’s dirty talk from the 1500s. How fun is that? So the association with sex is proved in my opinion. Buck is not just a sex/gender term, it’s a sex term.
You can argue that I’m making a huge, rabbit-like leap here, but that’s fine. I’m just pointing it out. All the arguments for butt naked are leaps, so it’s fair to include at least the better leaps for buck naked .
An association with clothing, or the lack thereof, can also be made directly. There are three references to clothes and by inference the absence of them, that have to do with linen and laundry:
Now, the OED does not make the association with buck naked that I am. But, you have to admit that being naked is certainly what you would be if you were to have only one set of clothes and they were in the wash, being bucked. I would call that condition buck naked quite by definition.
Again, I am only postulating this. But, since there is a clothes association here and a sexual association above, it is at least plausible that the idea of being “buck naked” is a natural occurrence, even if I can’t actually trace it back to the first time someone actually said, “Buck naked,” out loud or wrote it on a page.
Being perfectly honest, butt naked has no precedent that I can find that isn’t recent. In my estimation, it’s a dialectical evolution that combines the obvious nudity potential that one’s backside brings to mind with a sound-alike or homophonic coincidence. We don’t see one’s butt unless they are naked, so the association there is a pretty obvious one. Plus, there is a near homophonic relationship between “buck” and “butt” that might also come into play. I can’t prove it; I can only assert my authority (whatever of it I might have) based on my formal study of English and my study of language in general as an evolving thing both within a single culture and as it relates to the mingling of cultures, which often create dialectical/colloquial versions of words, phrases and ideas.
The OED has several pages on the word butt just like it does for buck . However, in all honesty, there is not one thing in any of all that reading that I can even playfully associate with the term butt naked beyond simply: “3. A buttock. Chiefly dial. And collloq. In U.S.” (“Butt,” 3 II: 708), and “a mound or hillock” that mostly refers to butte spelled differently (“Butt,” sb5 II: 709).
That’s it. I’ll give it a huge stretch and say, a naked backside does look like a mound (or two) or a hillock, as the images I've included on the right will show. But for that to prove an etymologically viable link is really working too hard.
However, I’ll also concede that one OED definition is pointing out that it’s a backside reference--the backside of an animal like a pig. One violent and humorous old quote from 1450 read, “Tak Buttes of pork and smyte them to peces,” which I will translate for you, as: Take butts of pork and smite them to pieces. Kind of makes you wonder, what in God’s name did that pig do to piss that guy off that bad? I mean, sure, that could be an excerpt from a cookbook and “smyte” means “chop up” like as if you’re preparing carnitas or something, but, were they writing cookbooks in 1450? I’m thinking not, that’s a little too close on Gutenberg’s heels to seem realistic to me. Plus, did anyone in Europe know about carnitas in 1450? I don’t think so, but hey, what do I know?
So, beyond smiting pigs to pieces, a small butt-shaped hill, and the acknowledgement that the use of butt as in “your booty” is “Chiefly dial. [dialectical] And Colloq [colloquial],” the OED is no help for attaching butt to naked. It’s definitely an American thing.
In fact, it may actually be a cultural thing too, although I admit I am really, really stretching here because my research was not exhaustive and is limited to what I was willing to do in five or six hours tops. However, I did run a basic EBSCO search through academic sources to see what I could find on the terms, checking to see who is using it, when and where. Based on my cursory look, there seems to be a black/white division suggested (which did come up in the conversation from my links above too).
On searching the two different terms, I found twenty-two entries for buck naked and I found seven for butt naked . As I did with the OED examination, I will start with buck naked since it essentially won the contest for being the more correct of the two in my review. The purpose of this second section of my article is not so much to show "rightness" but to show who is using the term, where, when and why. My point is to build credibility for one term over the other given the writing credentials of the authors.
This is the kind of search you use when seeking sources for academic writing--unlike Google search, which finds stuff with SEO manipulation to get on top of the list (burying peer reviewed work).
In a New York Times article on blushing, the journalist wrote, “Jane Austen heroines may pink endearingly at a subtle breach in manners; millions more glow like a lava lamp in what feels like a public disrobing: the face, suddenly buck-naked” (Carey). It’s a hyphenated version, but it still counts. So, my first piece of evidence for proper usage is found in this article, covering an academic study on blushing. This is an educated writer choosing this term to use in an academic discourse of a scientific nature. I think that is importa
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