press the flesh
press the flesh verb: to shake hands and socialize, especially in a political gathering.
Verb
press the flesh (third-person singular simple present presses the flesh, present participle pressing the flesh, simple past and past participle pressed the flesh)
- To shake hands and socialize, especially in a political gathering.
- Bill Clinton was in full campaign form Tuesday. Hours behind schedule, he stopped to press the flesh with everyone in sight.2008 January 23, “The Clintons Double-Team Obama”, in Time
- I’ve followed candidates campaigning in the past, been to countless political-party and interest-group functions, and seen plenty of politicians press the flesh while I stand on the side with my notepad or sit at a rickety table with my laptop.2021, Eric Garcia, We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation, Boston: Mariner Books, →ISBN, page 28
Forms of press the flesh
| third-person singular present | presses the flesh |
|---|---|
| present participle | pressing the flesh |
| past participle | pressed the flesh |
| past | pressed the flesh |
Questions about press the flesh
- What does press the flesh mean?
- Press the flesh means to shake hands and socialize, especially in a political gathering.
- What part of speech is press the flesh?
- Press the flesh is a verb.
- What is the past tense of press the flesh?
- The past tense of press the flesh is pressed the flesh.
Words near press the flesh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: press the 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-press the flesh.ogg.
Cite this entry: “press the flesh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/press_the_flesh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.