A pot in which flesh is boiled. Chiefly in phrase the flesh-pots of Egypt (see Exod. xvi. 3), or with allusion to that phrase: Luxuries or advantages regarded with regret or envy.
1535. Coverdale, Exod. xvi. 3. Whan we sat by ye flesh pottes, and had bred ynough to eate: for ye haue brought vs out in to this wyldernes, to cause this whole multitude dye of honger.
1592. Nashe, P. Penilesse, Wks. (Grosart), II. 74. It would not conuert clubs and clowted shoone from the flesh-pots of Egipt, to the Prouant of the Lowe countreyes.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VII. 299.
| Now well met Egypt, so our fate allots, | |
| For we have appetite for thy Flesh-pots; | |
| But (ah!) the Season, is too hot to eat | |
| Of any viand, Kid, Mutton, or such meat. |
1710. Swift, Lett. to Sterne, 17 April. I expect to hear the two ladies lamenting the fleshpots of Cavan-street.
1862. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), III. X. ii. 213. Law, with its wigs and sheepskins, pointing towards high honours and deep flesh-pots, had no charms for the young fool.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. lxxxviii. 177. The flesh-pots of the city administration had therefore greater attractions for him [Tweed] than before, and in 1837 he became a public school commissioner.
attrib. 1876. Ruskin, Fors Clav., VI. lxiv. 112. Some formalism, some literalism, some misery, and some flesh-pot comfort, will always be needful for the education of such beasts as we are.
Hence Flesh-pottery (nonce-wd.), high living, self-indulgence.
1876. G. Meredith, Beauch. Career, II. x. 191. A band of dealers in fleshpottery.
