Fleshly

a. and adv. [OE. flǽsclic, f. flǽsc, FLESH + -lic, -LY¹.] A.  adj.

  I.  Of or pertaining to the flesh, i.e., the body.

  1.  Of or pertaining to bodily appetites and indulgences; carnal, lascivious, sensual. Rarely of persons: Given up to bodily lusts; = CARNAL 3.

c. 888.  K. Ælfred, Boeth., xxxi. § 1. Hwæt godes maȝan we seeȝan on þa flæsclican unþeawas.

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Hom., II. 100. Unrihtlic bið þæt se cristena mann flæsclice lustas ȝefremme.

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 63. Wiðtieð ȝiu fro flesliche lustes.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 26364 (Cott.).

1382.  Wyclif, 1 Pet. ii. 11. Fleschly desijris … fiȝten aȝeus þe soule.

c. 1440.  Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), II. viii. All y^e flesshly felynge of this synfull ymage.

1533.  Frith, Answ. Fisher (1829), 194. Signifieth wicked men, fleshly men, and men that follow their own lusts and appetites.

a. 1592.  H. Smith, Wks. (1866), II. 377. The religion of Mahomet is fleshly, consisting in natural delights and corporal pleasures; which shew that man, and not the Divine Spirit of God, is the author thereof, for it is permitted the Saracens by that his law to have four wives.

1602.  Marston, Antonio’s Rev., IV. ii. Wks. 1856, I. 119.

1714.  Pope, Epil. Rowe’s Jane Shore, 21.

1826.  Scott, Woodst., xxix. In his occasional indulgence in what he called a fleshly frailty … which was in truth an attachment to strong liquors, and that in no moderate degree, his language, at other times remarkably decorous and reserved, became wild and animated.

1872.  R. Buchanan (title), The Fleshly School of Poetry and other Phenomena of the day.

  † b.  Sexual; = CARNAL 3 b. Obs.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 10873 (Cott.).

1483.  Caxton, G. de La Tour, E vj b. [She] coueyted and desyred to haue his flesshely companye, whiche was ageynst the lawe.

1485.  Act 1 Hen. VII., c. 4. Advoutry, Fornication, Incest, or any other fleshly Incontinency.

  † 2.  Connected by, or based upon, ties of flesh and blood; natural. = CARNAL 2. Obs.

c. 900.  trans. Bæda’s Hist., I. xvi. [xxvii.] (1890), 68. Ða goodan fædras ȝewuniað heora flæslecu bearn.

a. 1225.  Juliana, 5. Hire fleschliche feder wes affrican ihaten.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 20067 (Cott.).

14[?].  Prose Legends, in Anglia, VIII. 114. Þe whiche mayden was his fleschly cosyn.

1513.  More, in Grafton, Chron. (1568), II. 760. No lesse moue vs to charitie, then the respect of fleshly consanguinitie.

1578.  The Gude and Godlie Ballates (1868), 29.

  3.  ‘Natural,’ unredeemed, unregenerate; = CARNAL 5.

971.  Blickl. Hom., 19 Þa flæslican willan.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 17275.

1526.  Tindall, Rom. viii. 7. That the flesshly mynde is enmyte against God.

1550.  Crowley, Epigr., 1035.

1871.  Ruskin, Fors Clav., xxiv. (1872), 10. A man may be utterly avaricious,—greedy of gold—in an instinctive, fleshly way, yet not corrupt his intellect.

  4.  Of or pertaining to the material body, mortal; material as opposed to spiritual; human as opposed to divine. The fleshly eye: the bodily eye. Now rare. = CARNAL 1.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 12111.

a. 1225.  Leg. Kath., 914.

13[?].  E. E. Allit. P., A. 1080.

1382.  Wyclif, 2 Chron. xxxii. 8. With hym is the fleschely arm; with us the Lord oure God, the which is oure help and fiȝter for us.

1413.  Pilgr. Sowle (Caxton), I. i. (1859), 1. I had longe tyme trauayled toward the holy Cyte of Jerusalem, and that I had made an ende and fully fynyshed my fleshely pylgremage.

1435.  Misyn, Fire of Love (E.E.T.S.), 61. With fflescly eyn bodily þingis ar seyn.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 50.

1607.  Rowlands, Famous Hist., 67.

1732.  Berkeley, Alciphr., IV. § 14. I never imagined it cou’d be pretended, that we saw God with our fleshly Eyes as plain as we see any Human person whatsoever, and that he daily speaks to our Senses in a manifest and clear Dialect.

1874.  Blackie, Self-Culture, 10. The soul of a man underlies his features and his fleshly framework, and survives all changes as their permanent type.

  5.  Pertaining to, concerned with, or influenced by the present life, and considerations connected with it; worldly. Now rare. = CARNAL 4.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 4852. All flæshiȝ care & serrȝhe.

1450–1530.  Myrr. our Ladye, 33. The hartes he sayth of flesshely people be harde.

1531.  Tindale, Exp. 1 John (1537), 38. They preach hym falselye vnto theyr fleshly vauntage.

a. 1591.  R. Greenham, Short forme Catechising, Wks. (1599), 418. They be fleshly hatred of our enemies.

1648.  Cromwell, Let., 25 Nov., in Ann. Reg. (1765), 52. Our fleshly reasonings ensnare us.

1798.  Missionary Mag., No. 24. 217. Simplicity and godly sincerity, as opposed to fleshly wisdom, strongly marked his character.

1875.  Manning, Mission H. Ghost, i. 22. The word ‘sensual man’ in the original means the animal man, the man of flesh and blood, of the fleshly reasons, and of the carnal will without the Spirit of God.

  II.  With reference to flesh (as a substance).

  † 6.  Well furnished with flesh; fat, plump; = FLESHY 1. Obs.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, III. 1199 (1248).

1422.  trans. Secreta Secret., Priv. Priv. (E.E.T.S.), 226. Tho men whyche haue fleshly theghes and not bony, they bene nesshe aftyr the Propyrte of women.

1562.  Turner, Baths, 8 b. They are good for them that are to fatt and fleshlye.

1651.  Life Father Sarpi (1676), 97. Looking him in the face you would rather have thought it fleshly than otherwise, his colour pleasing, and when he was in health, was mixt with white and red, with a little yellowness, which became him not ill.

1694.  Acc. Sev. Late Voy., II. (1711), 92. They are very good Food … fleshly and fattish.

  7.  Consisting of flesh; = FLESHY 2. ? Obs.

1541.  R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg., E iv a. Substaunce flesshely, bony, and cartilagynous.

1591.  Spenser, M. Hubberd, 1087.

1654.  Vilvain, Epit. Ess., V. lxxx. 116 b. Caling such Animals as liv on Land Flesh; and thos that dwel in Water Fish; yet in Nature the Bodies of both are Fleshly.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlvi. (1856), 423. A smiling country, like a smiling face, needs some provision of fleshly integuments; and no earthly covering masks the grinning rocks of Pröven.

  b.  esp. of the heart: Soft, as opposed to ‘stony’; tender; = FLESHY 2 c.

1382.  Wyclif, 2 Cor. iii. 3. Writun, not with enke, but by the spirit of quyk God; not in stoony tablis, but in fleischly tablis of herte.

1541.  Barnes, Wks. (1573), 362/2. Then taketh hee awaye our stony hart, and geueth vs a fleshly hart.

1590.  Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., II. ii.

1856.  Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, IV. 1192.

  † c.  Of a leaf: = FLESHY 3 d. Obs.

1657.  W. Coles, Adam in Eden, lxviii. The common Orpine riseth with divers round brittle stalks, thick set, with fat and fleshly Leaves, without any Order, and little or nothing dented about the edges, of a pale green colour.

  † 8.  Of a hound: Fond of flesh. Obs. rare.

1576.  Turberv., Venerie, 25. You should not feede haryers with fleshe for diuers considerations: for if you do, they will become fleshly, and gyuen to hunte great beastes of chace.

  III.  9. Comb., as fleshly-minded adj., -mindedness.

1528.  Tindale, Wicked Mammon, Wks. I. 105. Christ rebuked them, saying that they wist not of what spirit they were: that is, that they understood now how that they were altogether worldly and fleshly-minded.

1621.  Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iv. II. i. (1651), 685. They are in a reprobate sense meer carnalists, fleshly minded men, which howsoever they may be applauded in this life, by some few parasites, and held for worldly wise men.

1840.  Hare, Mission Comf., iii. (1850), 77. In every man there is a root of carnal or fleshlymindedness. His soul is drugged from childhood upward with the stimulants and opiates of the senses; and he looks upon it as right and becoming and inevitable to desire such pleasures, to seek after them, to indulge in them, so that it be not intemperately and hurtfully.

  † B.  adv. Obs.

  1.  In bodily form, corporeally; as regards the body, ‘in the flesh’; = CARNALLY adv. 1.

c. 1230.  Hali Meid., 19. Þat ȝet þer he wuneð fleschliche on eorðe to singe þat swote song.

c. 1250.  Old Kentish Serm., in O. E. Misc., 27. And offre we Gostliche to ure lorde, þet [h]i offrede flesliche.

c. 1440.  York Myst., xlvi. 75.

  D.  In a material or physical sense or manner; materially as opposed to spiritually.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 16257.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 259. Of þilk adam took we þilke synne original, for of him flesschly descendit be we alle.

1635.  Pagitt, Christianogr., I. iii. (1636), 196. If any man taketh it fleshly, it profiteth nothing.

  2.  Carnally, sensually.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 58. Þu þæt dest eni þing hwarof þer mon is fleschliche ivonded of þe.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Pars. T., ¶ 128. Children that whylom loueden so fleshly euerich other.

1612.  T. Taylor, Comm. Titus ii. 4. Nature can loue naturally, that is, fleshly and corruptly, but not holily.

  b.  In the way of sexual intercourse, sexually; = CARNALLY adv. 2.

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 77. Na mon mine likame irineð ne mid me flesliche nefde to donne.

1303.  R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 2008.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron. VI. cc. 224. He put her nat from his bedde, nor yet delte w^t her flesshely.

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, IV. xxxiii. 155 b. He willed moreouer, that if any had married a rich & yong heire, & that afterwards he was found not able to liue with her so fleshly, as his youth required, that then it was permitted to the woman to choose to her helpe the neerest kinseman of her husband such as shuld plese her, & to couple her self with him, so that the children which he shuld beget, shuld at the least be of the blood and linage of her husband.

  3.  Comb., as fleshly-wise adj.

1542.  Becon, Pathw. Prayer, xviii. I j a. Seme it neuer so godly, vertuous and good in the syght of fleshly wyse men.