a. [f. FLESH sb. + -Y1. Cf. Ger. fleischig.]
1. Well furnished with flesh; fat, plump.
c. 1369. Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 954.
| Right faire shoulders, and body long | |
| She had, and armes ever lith, | |
| Fattish, fleshy, nat great therewith. |
14[?]. Lydg. & Burgh, Secrees, 2684.
| In knees also, trewthe to expresse, | |
| He that is ovir, moche fflesshy, | |
| Is soffte and feble, lerne this naturally. |
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 67. The other moste flesshy partes [of fattened children], they pouder for store, as we do pestelles of porke and gammondes of bakon.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 399. All Æthiopes are Fleshy, and Plumpe, and haue great Lips; All which betoken Moisture retained, and not drawne out.
1641. H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 3. Sheepe that growe fleshy with foure teeth, will growe fatte with eight.
1793. Ld. Auckland Corr., III. 69. Colonel Pack, who was shot through the fleshy part of the arm.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., Country Ch. (1865), 126. His consort, a fine, fleshy, comfortable dame, followed him.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxiii. His face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold fleshy curves had so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose.
fig. 1636. B. Jonson, Discov., Wks. (Rtldg.), 759/1. It is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than enough, it grows fat and corpulent.
2. Of or pertaining to flesh; consisting of flesh; without bone.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 106. Þe heed is maad of þre parties, of a fleischi partie, of a bony partie, & a brawni partie.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xv. (1887), 69. The belly and breast muscles and such fleshy partes as be about the ribbes being violently and vehemently strained & stretched, do for the time as it were mure vp, and stop the passage.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxix. 173. The fleshy parts being congealed, or by venomous matter obstructed.
1700. Dryden, Pythag. Philos., in Fables, 508.
| If Men with fleshy Morsels must be fed [ed. 1721. reads fleshly, and it is so cited by y.], | |
| And chaw with bloody Teeth the breathing Bread: | |
| What else is this but to devour our Guests, | |
| And barb’rously renew Cyclopean Feasts! |
1792. J. Belknap, Hist. New-Hampshire, III. 215. Besides the fleshy parts of the cod, its liver is preserved in casks, and boiled down to oyl, which is used by curriers of leather.
1807–26. S. Cooper, First Lines Surg. (ed. 5), 189 Every kind of fleshy tumour, every enlargement of an original part of the body, can only be the effect of some change in the action in the vessels.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 335. No species of reptile is possessed of true fleshy lips.
b. Corporeal, bodily.
1624. Massinger, Renegado, III. ii.
| I have heard | |
| Schoolmen affirm man’s body is composed | |
| Of the four elements; and, as in league together | |
| They nourish life, so each of them affords | |
| Liberty to the soul, when it grows weary | |
| Of this fleshy prison. |
c. 1630. Milton, Passion, 15.
| He sov’ran Priest stooping his regall head | |
| That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes, | |
| Poor fleshy Tabernacle entered, | |
| His starry front low-rooft beneath the skies. |
1814. Byron, Lara, I. xviii.
| But haughty still, and loth himself to blame, | |
| He call’d on Nature’s self to share the shame, | |
| And charged all faults upon the fleshy form | |
| She gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm. |
1864. Hawthorne, S. Felton (1883), 341. Eat no spiced meats. Young chickens, new-fallen lambs, fruits, bread four days old, milk, freshest butter, will make thy fleshy tabernacle youthful.
c. Of ‘flesh,’ implying softness and tenderness. Cf. FLESH sb. 1 f.
1526. Tindale, 2 Cor. iii. 3. Ye are the pistle of Christ, minstred by vs and written, not with ynke: but with the sprete of the livynge god; not in tables of stone, but in flesshy tables of the herte.
1585. Abp. Sandys, Serm., Cant. ii. 15 § 28. His wil is that stonie hearts be turned into fleshie.
1611. Bible, Ecclus. xvii. 16. Euery man from his youth is giuen to euill, neither could they make to themselues fleshie hearts for stonie.
d. Of a plant, leaf, fruit, etc.: Having a firm, or somewhat firm pulp; pulpy, not fibrous. Cf. FLESH sb. 2.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 110 b. The whole bodie of the Figge is fleshie.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 633. Those Iuyces, that are so fleshy, as they cannot make Drinke by Expression, yet (perhaps) they may make Drinke by Mixture of Water.
1672. Josselyn, New Eng. Rarities, 66. Vine, much differing in the Fruit, all of them very fleshy, some reasonably pleasant; others have a taste of Gun Powder, and these grow in Swamps, and low wet Grounds.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 37. A round fleshy Berry, like that of Myrtle, full of Juice, which is red when ripe.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), II. 428. Leaves opposite, egg-shaped, blunt, fleshy: stem weak: flowers scattered.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 282. Drupa, a Stone-fruit, has a fleshy coat, not separating into valves, containing a single hard and bony Nut, to which it is closely attached; as in the Peach, Plum, Cherry, &c.
1854. J. D. Hooker, Himalayan Journals, I. i. 16. Trees of the Mahowa, resembling good oaks; the natives distil a kind of arrack from its fleshy flowers, which are also eaten raw.
1870. H. Macmillan, Bible Teach., xi. 211. They have also thick fleshy leaves, with pores capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil; so that if a leaf be broken during the greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap.
† 3. Of the ‘flesh’ as opposed to the ‘spirit’; human as opposed to ‘spiritual’; = FLESHLY 4.
a. 1400. Prymer (1891), 78. Whethir þyn eyen be fleschchi, or thou seest as man schal se.
1535. Coverdale, Job x. 4. Hast thou fleszshy eyes then, or doest thou loke as man loketh?
† b. Carnal, sensual; = FLESHLY a. 1. Obs.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, V. § 4. 212. Fleshy concupiscence deserveth rather the name of Mercenarie Lust then Love.
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., I. xvii. 45. Such as are given to fleshy desires, have larger Kidneys then ordinary.
4. Resembling flesh in its properties or qualities.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 264. They [Rubies] are redde as though they were wasshed, and of a fleshye colour.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 26 The Mannatee is the other fish, being good meat, and and from their using the shoar have a fleshie taste resembling Veal both in shew and eating.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), I. 215. Joas van Cleeve, or Sotto Cleese, an industrious painter of Antwerp: his colouring was good, and his figures fleshy and round; but before he arrived at the perfection he might have attained, his head was turned with vanity.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 19. I have not, however, been able to devise any better mode of denominating these tumours; for all the species must agree in the external characters, those of an increase of bulk, and a fleshy feel.
