flesh

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The 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 surrounding the intestines.

2. 2
   noun

   Animal 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 / syr and I wille doo hit sayd sir launcelot / Also I charge you that ye ete no flesshe as longe as ye be in the quest of the sancgreal / nor ye shalle drynke noo wyne / and that ye here masse dayly and ye may doo hit

3. 3
   noun

   The 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, […]

4. 4
   noun

   The 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.

5. 5
   noun

   The 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.

6. 6
   noun

   Tenderness of feeling; gentleness.

   There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart.

7. 7
   noun

   Kindred; stock; race.

   He is our brother and our flesh.

8. 8
   noun

   A 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”.

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”). 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 fła…