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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

exchange flesh en · VERB

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (archaic, euphemistic, idiomatic, rare) To engage in sexual intercourse.
    • […]it was thought ſhe was a Woman, and was turn'd into a cold fiſh, for ſhe wold not exchange fleſh with one that lou'd her: […] c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 293, column 2:
    • [W]ill-she, nill-she, she must have Roger's company nightly in her bed, to ensure that he lay not with another. . . . To exchange flesh with Roger she would bid all the world defiance. 1977, Jane Lane, A Secret Chronicle: Edward II (2002 House of Stratus reprint), page 140 (Google preview)
    • She thinks to herself, What crime have I committed? If two people exchange flesh for money, why is it that only the one who contributes the flesh is a criminal and not the one who pays? 1997, Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai, →ISBN, page 210:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
exchanging flesh Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
exchanged flesh Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
exchanged flesh Tense=Past lexicographic
exchanges flesh Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic

Relateds

become one flesh

Synonyms

copulate