Flesh is the soft part of a body between the skin and the bones. Flesh and blood, in the flesh, the flesh of the fruit.
It covers muscle and fat together, and it is used of fruit for the same part. In the flesh means in person. Flesh out means to add detail. The word carries a long moral weight in religious use, where the flesh stands for bodily appetite. Note fleshy, and flesh-coloured, which assumes a great deal.
1nounfleshThe soft part of a body between the skin and the bones.
“The dog's teeth went through his trousers and into the flesh of his leg.”
2nounedibleThe soft edible part of a fruit.
“Scoop out the soft orange flesh of the melon with a spoon.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
flesh is body tissue.
Old English flaesc is Germanic, from a root meaning to tear or strip off. German Fleisch is the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*pleh₁ḱ- — to tear, peel off
Proto-Germanic
*flaiski
Proto-West Germanic
*flaiski
Old English
flǣsċ
Middle English
flesh
English, today
flesh
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”). 2 Cognate with yol vleash, vlesh (“flesh”), frr flaasch, flaosk, Fleesk, fleäsk, floask, flääsk, flååsch (“flesh, meat”), stq Flaask (“flesh, meat”), West Frisian fleis (“flesh, meat”), cim blòas, vlaisch, vlòas (“flesh, meat”), Dutch vlees, vleesch (“flesh, meat”), German Fleisch (“flesh, meat”), German Low German and lb Fleesch (“flesh, meat”), wym fłaś (“meat; muscle”), Yiddish פֿלייש (“flesh, meat”), Danish flæsk (“pork; bacon”), Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian Nynorsk flesk (“pork; bacon”), Swedish fläsk (“pork”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA