flesh
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "flesh", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "flesh" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "flesh" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
flesh is aEnglishnoun. It means: The soft tissue of the body, especially muscle and fat. Pronounced /flɛʃ/. It ranks #5,128 in English word frequency. Often confused with flew and flex.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | flesh |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /flɛʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #5,128 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for flesh is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /flɛʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,128 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for flesh, with forms such as "felsh", "fflesh", and "flehs". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "flew", "flex", "foes", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English flesh, flesch, flæsch, from Old English flǣsċ, from Proto-West Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁ḱ- (“to tear, peel off”). Cognates Cognate with Yola vleash, vlesh (“flesh”), North Frisian fl… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is flesh, spelled F-L-E-S-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The soft tissue of the body, especially muscle and fat.
- 2The skin of a human or animal.
- 3Bare arms, bare legs, bare torso.
- 4Animal tissue regarded as food; meat (but sometimes excluding fish).
- 5The human body as a physical entity.
- 6The mortal body of a human being, contrasted with the spirit or soul.
- 7The evil and corrupting principle working in man.
- 8The soft, often edible, parts of fruits or vegetables.
- 9Tenderness of feeling; gentleness.
- 10Kindred; stock; race.
- 11A yellowish pink color; the color of some Caucasian human skin.
Etymology
From Middle English flesh, flesch, flæsch, from Old English flǣsċ, from Proto-West Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Germanic *flaiski, from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁ḱ- (“to tear, peel off”). Cognates Cognate with Yola vleash, vlesh (“flesh”), North Frisian flaasch, flaosk, Fleesk, fleäsk, floask, flääsk, flååsch (“flesh, meat”), Saterland Frisian Flaask (“flesh, meat”), West Frisian fleis (“flesh, meat”), Cimbrian blòas, vlaisch, vlòas (“flesh, meat”), Dutch vlees, vleesch (“flesh, meat”), German Fleisch (“flesh, meat”), German Low German and Luxembourgish Fleesch (“flesh, meat”), Vilamovian fłaś (“meat; muscle”), Yiddish פֿלייש (fleysh, “flesh, meat”), Danish flæsk (“pork; bacon”), Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian Nynorsk flesk (“pork; bacon”), Swedish fläsk (“pork”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: felsh,fflesh,flehs,fleshh,flessh,fllesh,flseh,lfesh
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for flesh
Misspelling Variants of "flesh"
Frequency rank: #5,128 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "flesh"?
What does "flesh" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "flesh"?
How do you pronounce "flesh"?
What is the origin of the word "flesh"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: