exchange flesh

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

exchange flesh (third-person singular simple present exchanges flesh, present participle exchanging flesh, simple past and past participle exchanged flesh)

1. (rare, archaic, idiomatic, euphemistic) To engage in sexual intercourse.
   • 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:

     […] 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: […]

   • 1977, Jane Lane, A Secret Chronicle: Edward II, →ISBN (2002 House of Stratus reprint), page 140 (Google preview):

     [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.

   • 1997, Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai, →ISBN, page 210:

     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?

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:copulate

See also

• become one flesh