A purely Germanic word with no outside cognates, possibly from a root meaning 'to flay' — naming meat for the butchery that reveals it.
The soft substance of the body consisting of muscle and fat; the physical body as opposed to the spirit.
From Old English 'flǣsc' (flesh, meat), from Proto-Germanic *flaiską (flesh), of uncertain further origin. One proposal connects it to a PIE root *pleh₁k- (to tear, to flay), which would make 'flesh' literally 'the thing torn or flayed off' — the stripped meat of a slaughtered animal. The word is common to all Germanic languages but has no clear cognate outside the family