Adjacent Words

Flay definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FLAY, v.t. [Gr. whence bark, rind; probably a contracted word.]
1. To skin; to strip off the skin of an animal; as, to flay an ox.
2. To take off the skin or surface of any thing. [Not used.]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: strip the skin off

Merriam Webster's

transitive verb Etymology: Middle English flen, from Old English fl?an; akin to Old Norse fl? to flay, Lithuanian pl?šti to tear Date: before 12th century 1. to strip off the skin or surface of ; skin 2. to criticize harshly ; excoriate 3. lash 1b <the wind whipped up to gale fury, flaying his face — Richard Kent>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v.tr. 1 strip the skin or hide off, esp. by beating. 2 criticize severely (the play was flayed by the critics). 3 peel off (skin, bark, peel, etc.). 4 strip (a person) of wealth by extortion or exaction. Derivatives: flayer n. Etymology: OE flean f. Gmc

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Flay Flay, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Flayed; p. pr. & vb. n. Flaying.] [OE. flean, flan, AS. fle['a]n; akin to D. vlaen, Icel. fl[=a], Sw. fl[*a], Dan. flaae, cf. Lith. ples? to tear, plyszti, v.i., to burst tear; perh. akin to E. flag to flat stone, flaw.] To skin; to strip off the skin or surface of; as, to flay an ox; to flay the green earth. With her nails She 'll flay thy wolfish visage. --Shak.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(flays, flaying, flayed) When someone flays an animal or person, they remove their skin, usually when they are dead. They had to flay the great, white, fleecy animals and cut them up for food... VERB: V n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. a. Skin, excoriate, strip the skin from.

Moby Thesaurus

assail, attack, bark, berate, bleed, bleed white, blister, castigate, decorticate, defoliate, denude, deplume, despoil, dismember, displume, divest, drain, draw and quarter, dry, excoriate, exhaust, fleece, fustigate, impoverish, lacerate, lash, maim, mangle, milk, mutilate, pare, peel, pick clean, pick to pieces, pluck, pull apart, roast, scalp, scarify, scathe, scorch, scourge, shear, shred, skin, skin alive, slash, strip, strip bare, suck dry, take apart, tear apart, tear to pieces, tear to tatters, tongue-lash, trounce