birthday suit

Idioms & Phrases

birthday suit

Nakedness, as in The doorbell rang, and here I was in my birthday suit. In 18th-century Britain this term originally referred to the clothes one wore on the king's birthday. Later it was jocularly transferred to bare skin, alluding to the condition of a newborn baby.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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