half-naked

alternative half naked

1. idiomaticnot comparableWith very few clothes on; revealing lots of one's body.

alternative half naked

1. not comparableWith very few clothes on.

   Tim dressed himself in rags yesterday, and went out disguised as a beggar half-naked and without shoes or stockings. He robbed a gentleman and a lady of a watch and a purse.

   1847, George W[illiam] M[acArthur] Reynolds, “Old Death”, in The Mysteries of London, volume III (volume I, Second Series), London: G. Vickers, […], →OCLC, page 66, column 1

   2 more examples

   […] going about the county half-naked, but having good clothes, perhaps sent forward to the lodging-house by his jomer (girl); this is very often a profitable trade; the shallow-cove of course selling all the clothes he does not need himself.

   1859, Snowden's Magistrates Assistant, page 87

   Back there in the rolling, olive-clad hills is a splendid region of whose existence most of the visitors to the Riviera are unaware. There are no garish restaurants or casinos, no hot doggeries or Slopsy-kola signs, no half-naked women or twitching varicose veins being paraded.

   1960, Stephen Lister [pseudonym; Digby George Gerahty], chapter 12, in In Search of Paradise, London: Peter Davies, →OCLC, page 162

   Synonyms: seminude, semi-nude, semi-naked, seminaked