au naturel
4
9.6
- idiom
- /oʊ nætʊrəl/
- NSFW
:
al natural
- She initially wanted to paint the bricks white to match the built-in bookshelf next to it, but her husband is a purist and prefers his brick au naturel.
- go au naturel
Examples
-
The pool is fully exposed to the neighboring homes, so sunbathing au naturel isn't an option here.
-
I'm Carl Cristall and I'm coming to you live, invisible and totally au naturel!
-
You could just play it au naturel.
-
It's au naturel for me.
-
Here, I can go au naturel.
Fiction book (1991) -
Au naturel is the way to go.
Blog text (9) -
Very au naturel.
-
"Jon has always preferred being au naturel, but after yet another round of pictures popped up, Jen freaked out."
Blog text (13) -
Pockets of private beach are havens for au naturel sunbathing, and sandbars provide prime shelling at low tide.
-
And I would just love to come out here and be au naturel.
Synonyms
982
1.0
Not wearing any clothes on the body
217
2.2
Not covered or protected, showing the plain surface
89
3.7
Not wearing any clothes
20
8.5
Completely without clothes
6
9.3
Not wearing any clothes
4
3.7
Not wearing any clothes
2
9.9
Completely without clothes
2
9.6
Completely without clothes with the bottom showing
Not wearing any clothes
A person who has no clothes on
Completely without clothes, as when someone is born
Completely without clothes like at birth
Antonyms
How Dressed
Surface Forms
Morphology
au + naturel
The phrase is a French loan (au + naturel) rather than a transparently composed English construction; an average B1 learner who only knows English vocabulary will not reliably recognize or parse the French constituents. Although 'naturel' resembles English 'natural', the foreign prepositional element 'au' and the idiomatic, stylistic use make the overall meaning ('naked, unadorned') non-derivable from the parts for most learners.
Etymology
Au naturel comes from French, and the parts au and naturel literally mean 'in the natural' or 'in nature'. This picture of someone or something shown plain and without extras is why the phrase now means 'naked' or 'natural, unadorned'.