Bare, naked, nude, bald, barren are comparable when they mean destitute or divested of the naturally or conventionally appropriate covering or clothing.
Bare strongly suggests the removal or, often, the rejection of something additional, superfluous, dispensable, or acquired; thus, a bare head is one without a hat; bare legs suggest lack of socks or stockings; bare trees have lost all their leaves; one takes another’s bare word for a thing when one demands no confirmation or documentary proof; a bare room may be empty of furniture or may have only such furniture as is indispensable.
Naked suggests absence of all covering, especially in the way of protective or ornamental covering. When used with regard to persons and implying absence of clothing, the word is not uniform in its pictorial and emotional evocations; it may suggest many conditions, such as a state of nature and of physical beauty, a state of destitution and of pitiful suffering, a state of privacy and of admirable modesty or purity, a state of shameful publicity or of wanton exhibitionism.
In extended use, therefore, naked is preferred to bare when the emphasis is on revelation or exposure, or on the power of revealing or exposing something as it is in its severe outlines or structure, in its plain truth or without disguise, or in its hidden weakness or strength.
Nude and naked are very close synonyms when they are used in reference to persons, but nude, because of its association with the representation of undraped figures in art, tends to suggest little more than the absence of covering and to be comparatively a colorless word with little extended use and with few, if any, significant and distinctive implications.
Because of its unequivocal meaning, nude is preferred to naked when the mere fact of being without clothing is indicated and there is no intent to convey an aesthetic or ethical implication.
Bald implies absence of the hair of the head or, sometimes, actual or apparent absence of another covering (as of foliage, feathers, or vegetation); thus, the bald eagle is the common eagle after it has reached an age when its head and neck feathers are white and inapparent at a distance; a bald tree is one that no longer bears leaves at its top; a bald mountain is one whose peak is bare of vegetation.
In extended use bald implies austere or colorless bareness and a conspicuous absence of qualities that might add charm, vividness, or interest; thus, a bare style is one that employs economy of means or a meagerness of ornament; a naked style is one that disguises nothing and shows not the slightest obscurity or hesitancy in presenting the thought; a bald style is bare and plain to the point of severity.
Barren (see also STERILE) implies a lack of fertility or productive power and therewith also implies absence of natural or appropriate covering as an outward sign of impoverishment, impotence, or aridity; thus, barren lands are not only bare but they are waste, desolate lands incapable of producing crops; a barren style is the style of a person who has not the mind, heart, or imagination to give his style any signs of life or vitality or any coloring of fancy.