FLAY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does flay mean? 

• FLAY (verb)
  The verb FLAY has 1 sense:

1. strip the skin off

  Familiarity information: FLAY used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FLAY (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they flay    ... he / she / it flays   
Past simple: flayed   
Past participle: flayed   
-ing form: flaying   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Strip the skin off

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "flay" is one way to...):

pare; peel; skin (strip the skin off)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)