humanflesh
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Etymology: From human + flesh. Sense 1 after horseflesh.
Senses: examples: text: The ship slid softly along through the darkness of the harbor almost furtively as it were, as if she were carrying off a cargo of kidnapped humanflesh.
ref: 1897, Edmondo de Amicis, translated by Jacob B. Brown, “The Embarkation of the Emigrants”, in On Blue Water, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 9:
text: Horseflesh and humanflesh, / What’s the grand design? / Why does one pull the plough / And another one pull the lines? / What makes a man a man? / Why is a horse a horse?
ref: 1981, Peter Anderson, Phil Savath, “[Horseplay] Meat on the Bone”, in Ginny Ratsoy, James Hoffman, editors, Playing the Pacific Province: An Anthology of British Columbia Plays, 1967-2000, Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, published October 2001, →ISBN, page 218, column 1:
text: Picture yourself betting on a racehorse, seeing the animal take the lead, and then watching the horse suddenly stop because it pulled a muscle not properly warmed up by its trainers. You’d get pretty heated under the collar, and that’s not the kind of warm-up that’s very beneficial. Horseflesh and humanflesh alike need to be warmed up before strenuous activity.
ref: 1984, Steven Adcock, “[Breathing and Form, Warm-up, and Freebody Exercises] Warm-up”, in Steve Adcock’s Partner Workout: A Two-Person Exercise System that Provides Aerobic Benefits, Strength Building, and Flexibility Techniques Without the Need for a Gym or a Single Piece of Equipment, New York, N.Y.: M. Evans and Company, Inc., →ISBN, page 27:
text: Which was why I had come to the track twice a week for the past three years: to watch with fascination and dread and even with love as the sorry horseflesh struggled around the mile oval, carrying on their heaving backs the hopes of the sorry humanflesh who assembled there to bet on them.
ref: 1985, Robert Reeves, Doubting Thomas, New York, N.Y.: Crown Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 4:
text: Surely my markings are by this time as unmistakable to an observer of humanflesh as are horses’ shades of color, whorls of hair, configurations of bone, and daubs of white to experts in horseflesh. Who else has life imprinted precisely as it has me – left shin neatly scarred by ski-accident, […]
ref: 1986, Robert D. Pelton, “[Things as They Are] Distinguishing Marks”, in Circling the Sun: Meditations on Christ in Liturgy and Time, Washington, D.C.: The Pastoral Press, →ISBN, section “Ordinary Time”, page 191:
text: At that age, I would have been reluctant to see myself as the urgent stallion and Veronica as the skittish mare. Later, I would realize that horseflesh and humanflesh dance to the same ardent music, even though our human dance is constrained by rules that horses never know.
ref: 1992, Scott Russell Sanders, “Wayland”, in Joseph Epstein, Robert Atwan, editors, The Best American Essays 1993, New York, N.Y.: Ticknor & Fields, published 1993, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 305:
text: They just ran their separate ways, and so it wasn’t long before Longarm was splashing across Sappa Creek on the paint, alone in the renewed moonlight—and what in blue blazes was the matter with this fool pony? Horseflesh, like humanflesh, was heir to the same agues and cramps that made it easier to run at some times than at others.
ref: 1995 August, Tabor Evans [pseudonym], Longarm and the Kansas Killer (Longarm; 200), New York, N.Y.: Jove Books, →ISBN, page 120:
glosses: Humans collectively.
examples: text: I thought then how spirit is always perceived at a distance but flesh is not perceived at all, only touched. Puddingface waited my pleasure. Then suddenly, as if divinely sent to sate my perverse craving, a disgusting slab of humanflesh stepped straight into the room—a blighted, blasted, pasty, corrugated, scarred, infected, scabby, pimply, pussripe, pockmarked horse’s ass. His battered boots appeared to have shit on them, probably his own.
ref: 1972, Barry Brissman, Swing Low, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 40:
text: “They won’ hurt m’lady,” Chester blurted out. / “Good God, Chester—” Jack drew tight as a strung bow. He’d finally struck a nerve in that great lump of humanflesh. “Look what they’ve done to her already![…]”
ref: 1990 September, Betina Krahn, Caught in the Act, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 303:
text: It quickly becomes clear to us, though, that none of these horrendous creatures has any interest in attacking us. The only real risk we run is that of getting trampled as they go charging past. Very likely it is the case that they find humanflesh unpalatable, or indigestible, or downright poisonous.
ref: 1999 summer, Robert Silverberg, “Travelers”, in The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, volume 9 (The Millennium Express: 1995-2009), Burton, Mich.: Subterranean Press, published 2014, →ISBN, page 221:
text: “Mark!! Look out! Loo—” Then there was the sound. The crash. The force. The amorphous form of humanflesh left for dead after colliding with a a bus going 55 MPH.
ref: 2000 March 11, Benni Pierce, “Fractured Fiction: Controlling Fate’s Destiny”, in Jacob Chabot et al., editors, The Omen, volume 14, number 4, Amherst, Mass.: Hampshire College, page 23, column 3:
text: Scientists in Korea have released a prototype implant that allows an iPod Nano and a pair of earphones to be connected via your own soft, pink humanflesh.
ref: 2006 April, “Is the flesh no longer weak? It’s not just the beauty that’s skin deep…”, in Adam Oxford, editor, PCFormat, number 186, Bath, Somerset: Future Publishing Ltd, →ISSN, page 19, column 1:
glosses: The flesh of a human.
Related terms: human-flesh search
human flesh search engine