fleshpot

English

Etymology

From flesh +‎ pot. Earliest known use is from 1548 by Philip Nicolls in its literal sense, referring to a passage from Exodus 16:3, where the Israelites complain to Moses and Aaron about their current situation, reminiscing about the abundance of food they had while in captivity in Egypt; and thus it is a calque from Hebrew הַבָּשָׂ֔ר (“flesh, meat”) + סִיר (“pot”).

Noun

fleshpot (plural fleshpots)

1. (slang) A place offering entertainment of a sensual or luxurious nature.
   • 1884, Henry James, "A New England Winter" in The Century Magazine 28 (4–5) (August–September 1884).

     "This was absurd for a person who... had never before had such unrestricted access to the fleshpots. The fleshpots were full, under Donald Mesh's roof, and his wife could easily believe that the poor girl would not be in a hurry to return to her boarding-house in Brooklyn."

   • 1909 December 29, Jack London, “The Whale Tooth”, in South Sea Tales, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published October 1911, →OCLC, page 61:

     The frizzle-headed man-eaters were loath to leave their fleshpots so long as the harvest of human carcases was plentiful. Sometimes, when the harvest was too plentiful, they imposed on the missionaries by letting the word slip out that on such a day there would be a killing and a barbecue.

   • 1976 August 28, Bill Boletta, “'Man' Enough?”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 9, page 4:

     Are you so pressed for funds to pay off that loan that you have sunk into the mire of selling macho sex a la the Advocate's fleshpot section which they call (in what the editors there probably think is a euphemism) "Trader Dick?"

   • 2001, Susan Stryker, Queer Pulp, page 107:

     The younger man is spirited away to the fleshpots of Malibu Beach, where he becomes tainted by exposure to a dissolute lifestyle.

2. (US slang, derogatory) A very attractive woman considered a sex object.
   • 1891, Mrs. Hungerford [i.e., Margaret Wolfe Hungerford], April's Lady, London: F. V. White & Co., page 58:

     "Mere slip. Serpent of old Nile. Doesn't matter in the least," says Mr. Browne airily; "because she couldn't hear me as it happens. My dear girl, follow out the argument. Cleopatra, metaphorically speaking, was a fleshpot, because the world hankered after her. And—you're another."

   • 1987, Narain Dass Batra, “Dramatical Serial: Prime Time and Daytime” (chapter 5), in The Hour of Television: Critical Approaches, Scarecrow Press, "Dallas" to "Dynasty", page 92:

     Sue Ellen, Pam, Jenna--the mistresses and wives--come and go; in a male-dominated society every woman is a fleshpot unless she has the virtues of Miss Ellie and assumes the role of benevolent matriarch.

   • 1990 April, Scott Berg, “Bette Davis: Best Actress for Jezebel and Dangerous at Witch Way”, in Architectural Digest, page 248:

     So piquant was her delivery that merely by conjuring up one of her lines of dialogue, one is in the company of one of her unyielding characters—a fleshpot or a spinster, a waitress or a queen, a housewife or... as George Sanders’s character said of her alter ego in All About Eve, “Margo is a great star. She never was or will ever be anything less or anything else.”

3. (literally) A pot or vessel of flesh. [from 16th c.]
   • 1574, Thomas Sampson, “To the Chriſtian Reader Tho. Sampſon wiſheth the felicity of ſpædy and full conuerſion to the Lord”, in Two notable Sermons made by that woꝛthy Martyr of Chriſt Maiſter Iohn Bradford, the one of Repentance, and the other of the Loꝛdes ſupper never before impꝛinted‎^[3], London:  […] Iohn Awdely and Iohn Wyght:

     We would be againe in Egypt, and ſit by the greaſy fleſhpots, to eate againe our Garlike, Onions, and Leeks.

   • 1835, John Mason Good, The Study of Medicine, volume I, New York: Harper & Brothers, page 107, column 2:

     Some theorists, again, would have us live solely on animal food, and assert, that the human viscera bear vegetables " only in a grumbling way ;" while others would reduce us to the diet of Nebuchadnezzar, and not leave a fleshpot in our kitchens.

   • 1881, Jean Charles Davillier, chapter XV, in J. Thomson, transl., Spain, London: Bickers & Son, page 346:

     A copy of the sacred book, from the hand of Othman, was kept there in a golden box lined with silk, garnished with pearls and rubies, and placed upon a stand of aloe wood, with golden nails. The ancient sanctuary is commonly called el zancarron, in derision—literally, an old bone, a fleshpot bone.

   • 1902 June, “Varia”, in The Woodstock Letters, volume 31, number 1, page 146:

     In heraldic speech the blazon of the escutcheon would be described as follows : Quarterly, first and fourth vert, three bendlets (or in common parlance three gold bendlets upon a green field), for Oñaz ; second and third argent (silver), two wolves respecting each other, rampant against a fleshpot or cauldron suspended from a pothanger sable (black), for Loyola.

   • 1915, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, The Book of Public Arms, London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, page 32:

     The Arms are those of the two Companies impaled, usually displayed on separate escutcheons, the dexter the Armourers' (to which refer), the sinister the Braziers', viz., azure, on a chevron or between two ewers (i.e. beakers) in chief and a fleshpot in base or, three roses gules, barbed vert, seeded or.

Alternative forms

• flesh-pot

Translations

place offering entertainment of a sensual or luxurious nature

• French: lieu de plaisir (fr) m, lieu de débauche m, antre du péché m, antre du vice m
• Spanish: antro de libertinaje m, antro de placer m

Further reading

• “fleshpot n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

Anagrams

• top shelf, top-shelf