Word.ws English Dictionary

one flesh

one flesh noun: two people united by marriage.

Noun

one flesh (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Two people united by marriage.
    • "This is reasonable and natural," returned Pathfinder; ". . . A woman would be likely to follow the man to whom she had plighted faith, and husband and wife are one flesh."1840, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 15, in The Pathfinder
    • Mary: Have not I been the fast friend of your life
      Since mine began, and it was thought we two
      Might make one flesh, and cleave unto each other
      As man and wife?1875, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Queen Mary: A Drama, act V

Origin of one flesh

A biblical phrase, found for example in versions of Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:8.

Words formed from one flesh

Questions about one flesh

What does one flesh mean?
One flesh means two people united by marriage.
What part of speech is one flesh?
One flesh is a noun.

Words near one flesh in the dictionary

  1. one finger saluted
  2. one finger salutes
  3. one finger saluting
  4. one fingered salute
  5. one fingered salutes
  6. one flesh
  7. one foot
  8. one foot in the grave
  9. one foot out the door
  10. one foots
  11. one for all, all for one

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one flesh (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-one flesh.ogg.

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