Word.ws English Dictionary

pounds of flesh

pounds of flesh is the plural of pound of flesh.

Meaning of pound of flesh

Noun

pound of flesh (plural pounds of flesh)

  1. (idiomatic, sensitive) Something which is owed and which will be hurtful or difficult to provide; a debt owed to someone who is merciless and demanding.
    • You must be under the impression that I'm one of these damned New England sharks that get their pound of flesh off the widow and orphan.1915 October, Willa Sibert Cather, chapter I, in The Song of the Lark, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], →OCLC, part V (Doctor Archie’s Adventure), page 348

Questions about pounds of flesh

What is pounds of flesh the plural of?
Pounds of flesh is the plural of pound of flesh.

Words near pounds of flesh in the dictionary

  1. Poundon
  2. pounds
  3. pounds a beat
  4. pounds dirt
  5. pounds for pylons
  6. pounds of flesh
  7. pounds out
  8. pounds salt
  9. pounds sand
  10. pounds sand into a rathole
  11. pounds sterling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pounds of flesh (page history and authors); pound of 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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