flay

/fleɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

dialectal/fliː/

flay verb: to cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).

Verb (1)

flay (third-person singular simple present flays, present participle flaying, simple past and past participle flayed)

(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive) To cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).
(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive) To frighten; scare; terrify.
- If they'd let me have my way, I could have flayed him into shape1979, “The Trial”, in The Wall, performed by Pink Floyd
(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, intransitive) To be fear-stricken.

Noun

flay (plural flays)

(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) A fright; a scare.
(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) Fear; a source of fear; a formidable matter; a fearsome or repellent-looking person.

Verb (2)

flay (third-person singular simple present flays, present participle flaying, simple past flayed or (archaic) flaid or (obsolete) flew, past participle flayed or (archaic) flaid or (obsolete) flew or (archaic) flain)

To strip the skin off; to skin.
- The farmer flayed him as he had the bear, and so he had both bear-skin and fox-skin.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 113
Synonyms:

fleece, flense, skin
To lash or whip.

Proper noun capitalized: Flay

Flay (plural Flays)

A surname.

flay meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

flay in Tamil

தோலுரி, வன்மையாய்க் கண்டி

flay in Urdu

چمڑی ادھیڑنا, کھال اتارنا, سخت تنقید کرنا

flay in Malayalam

തോലുരിക്കുക, കൊള്ളയിടുക, കഠിനമായി ഖണ്ഡിക്കുക, ചിത്രവധം ചെയ്യുക

flay in Kannada

ಸಿಪ್ಪೆ ಸುಲಿ, ತೊಗಲು ಸುಲಿ, ತೆಗಳು, ಉರಿಚು

More languagesFewer languages

flay in Arabic: سَلَخَ salaḵa

Synonyms of flay

Forms of flay

third-person singular present	flays
present participle	flaying
past participle	flayed
past	flayed
alternative form	fla
alternative form	fley
alternative form	flee
alternative form	fly
alternative form	fleg
alternative form	flae
alternative form	flea
past (archaic)	flaid
past (obsolete)	flew
past participle (archaic)	flaid
past participle (obsolete)	flew
past participle (archaic)	flain

Past tense of flay: flayed

Origin of flay

From Middle English flayen, flaien, fleien, from Old English flīeġan ("to cause to fly, put to flight, frighten"), from Proto-Germanic *flaugijaną (“to let fly, cause to fly”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (“to fly”).

From Middle English flen, from Old English flēan, from Proto-West Germanic *flahan, from Proto-Germanic *flahaną.

Words formed from flay

Words that rhyme with flay

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about flay

What does flay mean?: Flay means to cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).
What is flay in Tamil?: Flay in Tamil is தோலுரி, வன்மையாய்க் கண்டி. See Flay meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is flay?: Flay can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce flay?: Flay is pronounced /fleɪ/.
What is the past tense of flay?: The past tense of flay is flayed.

Words near flay in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: flay (page history and authors); Flay (page history and authors); flay (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flay (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flay (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flay (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-flay.ogg.

Cite this entry: “flay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.