Botany. the soft, pulpy portion of a fruit, vegetable, etc., as distinguished from the core, skin, shell, etc.
the surface of the human body; skin: A person with tender flesh should not expose it to direct sunlight.
(no longer in common use; now considered offensive) flesh color.
verb (used with object)
to plunge (a weapon) into the flesh.
Hunting. to feed (a hound or hawk) with flesh in order to make it more eager for the chase.Compare blood(def 16).
to incite and accustom (persons) to bloodshed or battle by an initial experience.
to inflame the ardor or passions of by a foretaste.
to overlay or cover (a skeleton or skeletal frame) with flesh or with a fleshlike substance.
to give dimension, substance, or reality to (often followed by out): The playwright wrote pretty good characters, but the actors really fleshed them out.
to remove adhering flesh from (hides), in leather manufacture.
Archaic. to satiate with flesh or fleshly enjoyments; surfeit; glut.
Verb Phrases
flesh out,
to gain weight: He realized to his dismay that he had fleshed out during the months of forced inactivity.
to add details to or make more complete: She fleshed out her proposal considerably before presenting it to the committee for action.
Idioms
in the flesh, present and alive before one's eyes; in person: The movie star looked quite different in the flesh.
pound of flesh, something that strict justice demands is due, but can only be paid with great loss or suffering to the payer.
press the flesh, Informal. to shake hands, as with voters while campaigning: The senator is busy as ever pressing the flesh on the campaign trail.
Origin of flesh
before 900;Middle Englishflesc,Old Englishflǣsc; cognate with Old Frisianflēsk,Old High Germanfleisk (GermanFleisch), Old Norseflesk bacon
Old English flæsc "flesh, meat," also "near kindred" (a sense now obsolete except in phrase flesh and blood), common West and North Germanic (cf. Old Frisian flesk, Middle Low German vlees, German Fleisch "flesh," Old Norse flesk "pork, bacon"), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Proto-Germanic *flaiskoz-.
Figurative use for "animal or physical nature of man" (Old English) is from the Bible, especially Paul's use of Greek sarx, which yielded sense of "sensual appetites" (c.1200). Flesh-wound is from 1670s; flesh-color, the hue of "Caucasian" skin, is first recorded 1610s, described as a tint composed of "a light pink with a little yellow" [O'Neill, "Dyeing," 1862]. An Old English poetry-word for "body" was flæsc-hama, literally "flesh-home."
v.
1520s, "to render (a hunting animal) eager for prey by rewarding it with flesh from a kill," with figurative extensions, from flesh (n.). Meaning "to clothe or embody with flesh," with figurative extensions, is from 1660s. Related: Fleshed; fleshing.
