flesh and blood

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

flesh and blood (not comparable)

1. Real; substantial.
   • 2019 July 17, Talia Lavin, “When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield”, in GQ‎^[1]:

     [Minnesota Senator Steve] Daines isn’t the only example of right-wing politicians who wish to wield anti-Semitism as a convenient cudgel against their political enemies, with scant if any evidence. But Montana’s vanishingly small Jewish population makes it particularly clear that this strategy has little to do with flesh-and-blood Jews at all.

2. Consisting of flesh, blood, and other substances associated with animals or humans.

Synonyms

• flesh and bone

Noun

flesh and blood (uncountable)

1. A human body; a person generally.
   • 1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, →OCLC, section I, page 17:

     […] I'll tell you what else is a fact. It's a fact that he is wearing his blue Shetland turtle-neck today. Even as we speak his body is moving inside it. Warm and quick. It's more than flesh and blood can stand.

2. One's family, or member of one's family.

   How dare you say such a thing to your own flesh and blood?

3. Human nature. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4. (UK, Ireland, slang, obsolete) A mixture of brandy and port in equal quantities.

Synonyms

• flesh and bone

Translations

one's family

• Georgian: სისხლი და ხორცი (sisxli da xorci)
• Hebrew: בשר מבשר־ (he) m (basár mibasar-, literally “flesh from (one’s) flesh”) (plus pronominal suffix)
• Tagalog: dugo't laman
• Tibetan: ཤ་རུས (sha rus, literally “flesh-blood”), ཤ་རུས་གཅིག་པ (sha rus gcig pa, literally “flesh-blood-ling”)

References

• (mixed brandy and port): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary