/flɛʃ/
OriginFrom Middle English flesh, flesch, flæsch, from Old English flǣsċ, from Proto-West Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁ḱ- (“to tear, peel off”).
Cognates
Cognate with Yola vleash, vlesh (“flesh”), North Frisian flaasch, flaosk, Fleesk, fleäsk, floask, flääsk, flååsch (“flesh, meat”), Saterland Frisian Flaask (“flesh, meat”), West Frisian fleis (“flesh, meat”), Cimbrian blòas, vlaisch, vlòas (“flesh, meat”), Dutch vlees, vleesch (“flesh, meat”), German Fleisch (“flesh, meat”), German Low German and Luxembourgish Fleesch (“flesh, meat”), Vilamovian fłaś (“meat; muscle”), Yiddish פֿלייש (fleysh, “flesh, meat”), Danish flæsk (“pork; bacon”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk flesk (“pork; bacon”), Swedish fläsk (“pork”).
- uncountable, usuallyThe soft tissue of the body, especially muscle and fat.
“The flesh of chicken, fowl, and turkey has much shorter fibre than that of ruminating animals, and is not intermingled with fat,—the fat always being found in layers directly under the skin, and surro”
- uncountable, usuallyThe skin of a human or animal.
- broadly, uncountable, usuallyBare arms, bare legs, bare torso.
- uncountable, usuallyAnimal tissue regarded as food; meat (but sometimes excluding fish).
“Thenne syr launcelot sayd / fader what shalle I do / Now sayd the good man / I requyre yow take this hayre that was this holy mans and putte it nexte thy skynne / and it shalle preuaylle the gretely /”
“The fleſh that twycheth any vnclene thinge ſhall not be eaten. but burnt with fire: and all that be clene in their fleſh, maye eate fleſh. Yf any ſoule eate of the fleſh of the peaceofferynges, that p”
“Chicken is already the most popular meat in the US, and is projected to be the planet’s favourite flesh by 2020.”
- uncountable, usuallyThe human body as a physical entity.
“And the preaſt ſhall put on his lynen albe and his lynen breches apon his fleſh, and take awaye the aſſhes whiche the fire of the burntſacrifice in the altare hath made, and put them beſyde the alter,”
“In my political/cultural mythology Carl remained this larger-than-life figure […] But knowing Carl, the fantasy made flesh, was a different experience. The keen mind that wrote "A Gay Manifesto" was e”
- uncountable, usuallyThe mortal body of a human being, contrasted with the spirit or soul.
“For all flesh is as grasse, and all the glory of man as the flowre of grasse: the grasse withereth, and the flowre thereof falleth away.”
“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that yee cannot doe the things that yee would.”
“1929 January, Bassett Morgan (Grace Jones), Bimini, first published in Weird Tales, reprinted 1949, in Avon Fantasy Reader, Issue 10,
But death had no gift for me, no power to free me from flesh.”
- uncountable, usuallyThe evil and corrupting principle working in man.
- uncountable, usuallyThe soft, often edible, parts of fruits or vegetables.
“The flesh of black walnuts was a protein-packed winter food carefully hoarded in tall, stilted buildings.”
- obsolete, uncountable, usuallyTenderness of feeling; gentleness.
“There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart.”
- obsolete, uncountable, usuallyKindred; stock; race.
“He is our brother and our flesh.”
- uncountable, usuallyA yellowish pink color; the color of some Caucasian human skin.
“She opened [...] a third that was the peachy white that crayon companies used to call “flesh”.”
- transitiveTo reward (a hound, bird of prey etc.) with flesh of the animal killed, to excite it for further hunting; to train (an animal) to have an appetite for flesh.
“Before they had fleshed the hounds, however, he recollected himself […].”
- transitiveTo bury (something, especially a weapon) in flesh.
“Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in.”
- obsoleteTo inure or habituate someone in or to a given practice.
“And whosoever could now joyne us together, and eagerly flesh all our people to a common enterprise, we should make our ancient military name and chivalrous credit to flourish againe.”
- transitiveTo glut.
- transitiveTo put flesh on; to fatten.
- To remove the flesh from the skin during the making of leather.
Formsfleshes(plural) · fleshes(present, singular, third-person) · fleshing(participle, present) · fleshed(participle, past) · fleshed(past)