Dating from the 1920 s , the expression buck naked commonly means completely naked or without a stitch as opposed to partially naked . Synonyms include bare naked , buck naked , and butt naked also spelled , facetiously , butt nekkid . In the American South , buck naked or its corruption butt naked means not in your house , out looking for trouble on Saturday night and wearing no clothes . citation neededThe origin of the term is buck naked as in as naked as a buck deer . It originated during a time when people were less urban and a deer or other wildlife were not such alien concepts , and their references were sprinkled throughout speech . Naked as a jaybird is another such clich . It was further reinforced in its usage by the fact that a buckskin is similar to tanned human skin . The corrupted term butt naked is just another example of mispronunciation that gets ingrained in people ' s speech . Just like coming down the pipe has garnered common usage for those that don ' t understand that the term pike is the proper word . Such corruptions are common in that a misheard expression gains acceptance as the erroneous phrase is also reasonably nonsensical when it is heard by others , and propagated . While there is much debate over the origin of this phrase , that is common with corrupted clichs , as admitting the corruption is often seen as a comment on intelligence . Thus , many argue that butt naked came first and that buck was later adopted by some to tone down any vulgarity perceived in using the word butt . Regardless of origin , the Associated Press style guide currently advises using buck naked .