half-naked

• half naked

From Middle English half naked, from Old English healfnacod, from Proto-Germanic *halbanakwadaz; equivalent to half- +‎ naked.

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half-naked (not comparable)

1. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (idiomatic) With very few clothes on; revealing lots of one's body.

half-naked (not comparable)

1. With very few clothes on.
   • 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:

     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.

   • 1859, Snowden's Magistrates Assistant, page 87:

     […] 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.

   • 2009 October 13, “Train drags mooner half-naked along tracks”, in Sydney Morning Herald:

• seminude, semi-nude
• semi-naked, seminaked

• half-nakedly
• half-nakedness

• “half-naked”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.