1. Used as representing the material of which man’s physical frame is composed; the body. In flesh and blood: in a bodily form, or in a living form. To take flesh and blood: to become incarnate.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xvii. 11. He maked his son to take fleisse and blode, and swa he lightid down til vs.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. II. 153. Whanne hit hadde of þe [folde] · flesch and blod ytake.
1509. Parl. Devylles, lxxii.
| Forsothe I dyde out of the godhede come | |
| And toke flesshe and blode a mayde within. |
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, I. i. 186. I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
1874. Blackie, Self-Culture, 39. There is nothing that a student ought to be more careful about than the sound condition of his flesh and blood.
fig. 1861. O’Curry, Lect. MS. Materials, 153. Not intended to by anything more than a skeleton, to be at some future time clothed with flesh and blood from the large stock of materials which might still remain.
b. Mankind; an individual man or men. Also predicatively To be flesh and blood: to be human, have human feelings or weaknesses.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xvi. 17. Hit þe ne onwreah flæsc ne blod.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, I. iii. 38. Clo. I haue beene Madam a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are.
1636. Massinger, Gt. Dk. Florence, II. iii.
| For I am flesh and blood, and have affections | |
| Like other men. |
1694. Congreve, Double Dealer, I. i. Maskwell is flesh and blood at best.
1832. Blackw. Mag., XXXII. July, 61/2. The fatal idea generally prevailed among them, that the greatest interests of the country were not represented, and that British flesh and blood were sacrificed to the theories of cold-blooded political economists.
1874. L. Stephen, Hours in Library (1892), I. x. 346. Our grandfathers were human beings. The ordinary historian reduces them to mere mechanical mummies; in Walpole’s pages they are still living flesh and blood.
c. Human nature with its emotions and infirmities.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, III. xxx. My god, lete not flesshe and blode ouercome me.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. II. Imposture, 484.
| Heer I conceive that flesh & bloud will brangle, | |
| And murmuring Reason with th’ Almighty wrangle. |
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., 96.
| And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood, | |
| Their Gods disgrac’d, & burnt like common Wood. |
1714. Pope, Epil. Rowe’s Jane Shore, 47.
| To see a piece of failing flesh and blood, | |
| In all the rest so impudently good. |
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., vii. It is proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood cannot bear.
d. attrib. or adj. Having actual human existence.
1824. S. E. Ferrier, The Inheritance, ix. The original was a real flesh and blood living person.
1861. T. A. Trollope, La Beata, I. i. 6. He need not, like those other flesh and blood visitors, be kept waiting.
2. (One’s) near kindred.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 4128 (Cott.).
| I rede noght yee your broþer sla, | |
| þat es your aun fless and blod. |
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 149.
| That he ne shulde his counseil hide | |
| From hir, that so wolde him good, | |
| And was so nigh flesshe and bloud. |
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1631), III. XI. 131/2. This sorrowfull sight of his owne flesh and bloud could nothing moue him, but that he constantly & cherefully tooke hys death wyth wonderfull pacience in the defence and quarell of Christes Gospell.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. ii. 98. Ile be sworne if thou be Lancelet, thou art mine owne flesh and blood.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), III. V. vi. 222. The Pope, John VIII., highly approved of this usurpation, commended Athanasius because he had overthrown the new Holofernes, and had not spared his own flesh and blood.
3. slang. Brandy and port in equal quantities.
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Eng. Spy, I. 294. Poor Mrs. Peake, half frightened to death, was up and busy in administering to the sufferers various consolatory draughts composed of bishop, and flesh and blood, and rumbooze.
4. The plant Potentilla Tormentilla; also, the name of a kind of apple.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 72. Tormentil. The plant itself, under the name Flesh-and-Blood, is a popular astringent medicine for children.
1882. Devonsh. Plant-n., Flesh and Blood … a certain kind of Apple.
