Interesting question. From a native (American) English speakers perspective, I think the following: - Nude - can mean without clothing, but also can mean without they typical "covering" of what ever object you may be talking about. For example, take the prefix "de" and combine with "nude" to mean "denude". This can be understood to remove something that is covering an object. For example, "after the typhoon, the trees were denude of leaves." - Naked - can also mean without a covering or clothing. But, I think for the typical American English speaker, it also has an emotional aspect that the word "nude" doesn't have. For example, a person can say they feel "naked" even if they are wearing clothing, but that they feel uncomfortable with a situation. Another example, sometimes you have a bad dream where you are NAKED in public; but you would never say "I had a bad dream, I was NUDE in public". I hope this helps.