Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a drink composed of equal measures of port and brandy.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1900		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 1 Sept. 3/6: The language of the London East-end pub [...] ‘Flesh and Blood’ — Brandy and port.

1. a shirt.

c.1790		‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 7: Both of dem took of dir flesh-bags.
1796		Proc. Old Bailey 11 May 588/2: He got me intoxicated, and damned me, and asked if I could not get something to get some money; he took hold of my shirt, and said, a flesh-bag, I did not know what he meant; he then said some shirts, damn you.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 102: My Gossop was [...] just taking off his flesh-bag.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 66: Vhy I’ve got as good a flesh-bag as ever stuck to a cove’s prat; but you know they am no use in the shallow fake.
1852		Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: I nearly shook my flesh, bag and trousers off with hactual faiking the dodge to a rhino point.
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 25 July 3/3: Directly the men had doffed their flesh bags there was a universal buzz of admiration at their splendid condition.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 110/1: Upon examining Artful’s ‘flesh-bag,’ sure enough there was the torn collar.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 4: Flesh-bag - A shirt.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 320: A shirt ... A mill-tog, flesh-bag, skin-cover etc.

2. the human body.

1826

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 3 Dec. 773/1: A tremendous cross-buttock, which shook all the bones in his flesh-bag.

a madame, a procuress; a match-maker; a pimp.

1611		Second Maiden’s Tragedy II ii: Are white hairs A colour fit for panders and flesh brokers.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Flesh-broker, a Match-maker; also a Bawd.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
a.1740		Newgate Calendar 🌐 He employed an old bawd in the affair, who was intimately acquainted with our hostess, and by this flesh-broker’s mediation things had like to have come to an issue.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Flesh broker. a match-maker, a bawd.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 2 Apr. n.p.: What ought to be done with nuisance Sid the flesh broker.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 29: Flesh Broker, a procuress.

an official who punishes prostitutes with flogging.

1620		J. Melton Astrologaster 32: If Tom Todd and his fellow flesh-dressers had not quencht those inflamations, many three-chin’d Bawd, dry-fisted Punke, and biskit-handed Pandar would haue had all their hayre burnt off long ere this.
1647		Crete Wonders foretold by her crete Prophet of Wales in E. Ashbee Facsimile Reprints n.p.: [as written] Tat [that] there shall also tis present yesre be [be] many crete [great] fires in . . . pick-hatch, Turnbull-street, the Myneries, Coven-Garden, te Strand, Holborne, and poth [both] te Friers, and other such religious places, where Venus Nunnes are cloystered, and Tom Tod and his fellow flesh-dressers do not quench those inflammations, many . . . shall have all their haire burnt off.

(US) a brothel.

c.1895		Actionable Offenses ‘Slim Hadley on a Racket’ (2007) [cylinder recording ENMS 30184] ‘Is this the flesh factory?’ ‘What?’ ‘I said is this a — pecker shop?’ ‘What d’you want?’ ‘I want a fuck, what the hell d’you s’pose?’.
1951		C. Stoker Thicker ’n Thieves 95: That evening with twenty dollars of city money in his pocket and in his big red convertible coupe, he pulled up in front of Brenda’s flesh factory.

1. (also fly-flesh) a lecher, a womanizer.

1532		T. More Confutation of Tyndale Answer VIII Pt II 789: What can men call them by ryght but Ishmaelys, & Esaues, & reprobates, and very carnall fleshflyes?
1607		Middleton Michaelmas Term I ii: Thou art fair and fresh; The gilded flies will light upon thy flesh.
1618		Fletcher Loyal Subject III iv: (Exeunt Gentlemen). burris: You have frightened off these flesh-flies. theodore: Flesh-flies indeed my Lord. And it must be verie stinking flesh they will not seize on.
c.1640		J. Day Parliament of Bees 10: [A] fleshe-fly, takes up all petticoats he meets.
1650		‘Of Women’s Naked Breasts’ in Wardroper (1969) 252: They but invite flesh-flies, whose full-spread pips Like roadways lie between their lips and laps.
1659		J. Shirley Honoria and Mammon II i: These Courtiers are another sort of flesh-flies, That haunt our City dames.
1706		[T. Betterton] Amorous Widow 19: Love. Was there ever such a Piece of Fly-Flesh? Cun. The Rogue acted it to the Life.
1772		‘Verses on an amorous old Man’ in Covent Garden Mag. Dec. 234/2: Still hov’ring round the fair, at sixty-four, / Unfit to love, unfit to give o’er, / A flesh-fly, that just flutters on the wing, / Awake to buz, but not alive to sting.
1841		Sun. Flash (NY) 17 Oct. n.p.: To follow and insult ladies in the street is his constant and daily practice. [. . . .] Such flesh-flies are [. . .] annoying and [. . .] great offenders contra bonos mores.

2. a prostitute.

1611		Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girle I i: A fleshfly, that can vex any man.
c.1621		Middleton Women Beware Women (1887) II ii: No spider’s web Made of a daintier thread than are now practis’d To catch love’s flesh-fly by the silver wing.

3. a madame, a bawd; occas. a pander.

1607–8		J. Mason Turke II iii: The flesh-fly ... will neuer linne sucking at me so long as I haue any matter for her to worke vpon.
1624		T. Heywood Captives I i: [of a ‘hee bawde’] [A] flesh-fly whome as soone as the butchers wyves sawe comminge throwghe the shambles, they ... stood with theire flapps in theire hands ... to keepe away his infectious breath least it should fill theire meate with fly-blowes.
1654		T. Killigrew Thomaso Pt II IV v: These flesh flies how they haunt the shambles.

the hands.

1567		Trial of Treasure Dii: If ye chaunce to tell any tales of these gentlewomen, With fleshe hokes and nayles, you are like to be rent.
1607		G. Wilkins Miseries of an Enforced Marriage Act IV: Good! I have met my flesh-hooks together.
1608		R. Armin Nest of Ninnies 33: Good hold for flesh hookes.
1613		Dekker A Strange Horse-Race in Grosart Works (1885) 348: He therefore being tossed [...] vpon their glowing flesh-hookes, from one to one.
1639		R. Davenport A New Tricke to Cheat the Divell V i: I am arm’d, yes, [...] with Flesh hookes, and with Fire-brands.

(US black) an obsessive womanizer.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 149: The labels assigned to sexually active males underscore this supposed sexual voraciousness – flesh hound, cock hound.

1. any street or urban area, e.g. Cheapside, the Strand, Covent Garden, that is home to parading prostitutes.

c.1758		John F---g Epistle of a Reformed Rake 10: Seeing Plays in the Flesh-market, hearing Rakes and [...] reading a Bawdy-novel.
1765		Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies 110: [S]he is a fine piece of goods and will fetch a high price in the Flesh-market.
1793		Sporting Mag. Aug. II 307/2: Mother Johnson, the King’s-place abbess, and one of the most notorious purveyors of that celebrated flesh-market.
1818		W. Perry London Guide.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 81: Flesh-market—any walk, or run for females who carry the broom up, is the flesh-market ? so and so, as of the Piazzas, Cheapside, Strand, &c.
1886		Reynold’s Newspaper (London) 12 Dec. 2/2: The night of the West-end — the shambles of Regent’s-street, Piccadilly, and the Haymarket opens [...] the flesh market [is] held nightly [...] There are young women [...] a number of them expensively dressed, the bawd who shows off the wares marching within eyeshot.
1951		C. Stoker Thicker ’n Thieves 67: ‘He sneaks prostitutes into this hotel, top flight gals from the Hollywood flesh mart, gals who won’t lay the body down for less than fifty-dollars, and who generally get a hundred’.

2. a brothel.

1779		Nocturnal Revels 2 252: She soon recovered most of her customers; as [...] her’s [sic] was now one of the best Flesh-Markets in town.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

1. the vagina.

1896

Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 61: Charnier, m. The female pudendum; ‘the flesh-pot’.

2. a brothel.

1837		R.P. Robinson Life and Conversations 6: I sigh for the Manhattan fleshpots.
1880		A.A. Hayes New Colorado 67: If you sigh for the flesh-pots of Delmonico, you ought to have stayed in New York.
1965		(con. WWII) E. Lambert Long White Night 151: The fleshpots. Bints, beer, sleep.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 144: It happens at the only one where the CO’s off to the fleshpots.
1986–7		Maledicta IX 148: The compilers ought to have looked farther afield and found: […] fancy house, fleshpot, gaff.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 74: I was half-plastered at three a.m. in some subterranean fleshpot.

3. (US) a woman, viewed strictly (and thus offensively) as a sex object.

1935		J. Conroy World to Win 323: I’ve been muzzled away from the flesh pots so long, it’s a mighty temptation.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 98: Lined up on the deck, impatient to get at the fleshpots of a new capital.
1951		A. Garve Murder in Moscow (1994) 144: I’ve never seen anyone who seemed to care so little for the fleshpots.
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 119: Having a lash at the flesh-pots?
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

1. (orig. US) a politician who attempts to curry favour with the voters by shaking as many hands, kissing as many babies and patting as many backs as possible during a campaign.

1999		Salon.com 17 June 🌐 Clinton – the flesh-presser, the eternal campaigner, the leaper out of the limousine into the crowd.
2003		commercialappeal.com 6 Dec. 🌐 Hubert H. Humphrey – Old School barnstormer and flesh-presser.

2. (US) a porn star.

2003

Variety.com 2 Dec. 🌐 Now either someone at the Times has a crush on the curvy flesh presser or this is yet another example on [sic] how pornography is slowly but surely seeping into mainstream consciousness.

(UK und.) a sheet.

1840

Flash Mirror 4: The Flea Trap [...] Very good dabbs may be had here [...] consisting of an upper slasher, a pair of flesh receivers, and a straw swetter.

a brothel.

1608

J. Day Humour out of Breath Act II: I Asp.: She may bee well discended; if shee be, Shee’s fit for love, and why not then for me. Boy: And you be not fitted in Venice ’tis straunge, for ’tis counted the best flesh-shambles in Italie [F&H].

a surgeon.

1633

Ford ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore III vii: O help, help! Here’s a stitch fallen in my guts. O for a flesh-tailor quickly!

of a man, to have sexual intercourse; modern use is by both sexes.

1598		Florio New Worlde of Wordes n.p.: Andar in Carnafau, to go a fleshing or a wenching.
1602		Shakespeare All’s Well That Ends Well IV iii: He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown; and this night fleshes his will in the spoil of her honour.
c.1616		W. Goddard Mastif Whelp D4: [He] Took armes to joyne in battell with a wenche [and] soe flesht hir, as that he, Shee’d ne’re endure, to come off quite Scott-free.
c.1621		Beaumont & Fletcher Wild-Goose-Chase I ii: ’Tis but fleshing, But standing one good brunt or two.
1993		A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 165: Yo bro’ [...] long time I don’t flesh it up with my piece.

(W.I.) to perform the ritual palm slapping that is a greeting between blacks, or between blacks and knowledgeable whites.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.