flesh
/flɛʃ/ noun, verb
Forms fleshes fleshing fleshed
- noun The soft tissue of the body, especially muscle and fat.
- noun The skin of a human or animal.
- noun (by extension) Bare arms, bare legs, bare torso.
- noun Animal tissue regarded as food; meat (but sometimes excluding fish).
- noun The human body as a physical entity.
- noun (religion) The mortal body of a human being, contrasted with the spirit or soul.
- noun (religion) The evil and corrupting principle working in man.
- noun The soft, often edible, parts of fruits or vegetables.
- verb (transitive) To 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.
- verb (transitive) To bury (something, especially a weapon) in flesh.
- verb (obsolete) To inure or habituate someone in or to a given practice.
- verb (transitive) To glut.
- verb (transitive) To put flesh on; to fatten.
- verb To remove the flesh from the skin during the making of leather.
Synonyms
human body physical body material body soma build figure physique anatomy shape bod chassis frame form pulp
Etymology
From 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”).
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”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun The aggregate of the muscles, fat, and other tissues which cover the framework of bones in man and other animals; especially, the muscles.
- noun Animal food, in distinction from vegetable; meat; especially, the body of beasts and birds used as food, as distinguished from fish.
- verb To feed with flesh, as an incitement to further exertion; to initiate; --from the practice of training hawks and dogs by feeding them with the first game they take, or other flesh. Hence, to use upon flesh (as a murderous weapon) so as to draw blood, especially for the first time.
- verb To glut; to satiate; hence, to harden, to accustom. "Fleshed in triumphs." Glanvill.
Etymology [OE. flesch, flesc, AS. fl; akin to OFries. flask, D. vleesch, OS. fl, OHG. fleisc, G. fleisch, Icel. & Dan. flesk lard, bacon, pork, Sw. fläsk.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “flesh”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details