in the flesh
34
4.2
- idiom
:
en persona
- I finally got to meet my favorite author in the flesh at the book signing event.
- see in the flesh
I've seen, I've seen Will Smith in the flesh live talking.
- I've seen, I've seen Will Smith in the flesh live talking.
- These double doors open and I see him in person in the flesh for the first time.
- And it's so lovely to just see you here in the flesh.
- So this cyber truck thing, I cannot wait to see it in the flesh.
- This is coming from someone who's seen it in the flesh and also studied it and seeing how it's formed to.
- MKBHD here and this this is the iPad Pro, the huge iPad in the flesh.
- That's where they have to show up in the flesh so that the hero and the adversary can go for all the marbles.
- We're going to learn a little bit about his journey with cystic fibrosis and just get to see him here today in the flesh.
- Greatest fighter I've seen in the flesh would be Sugar Ray Leonard.
Examples
-
I'm so happy to have you here in the flesh.
-
While he'd come across as attractive on the screen, in the flesh he was irresistible.
Fiction book (1999) -
These double doors open and I see him in person in the flesh for the first time.
-
Here we have our man, in the flesh.
-
Said she really wants to meet me in the flesh, and well, I really wanted to meet her too.
-
At this time, I had never seen a sports event in the flesh.
Academic text (1991) -
We have been wanting to see you in the flesh for a very long time.
-
It's really her, standing here beside me in the flesh.
Fiction book (2001) -
Yeah, it'll be great to see you in the flesh, at long last.
-
The Blessed Sacrament is God Himself in person, in the flesh, seated in front of the congregation.
Blog text (32)
Synonyms
271
1.6
To be present at a place rather than by phone or online
130
2.3
In the same place as someone and looking at them directly
7
2.8
Happens when people sit or stand opposite each other in the same place
1
9.9
Something that happens in the real world, not online
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'seeing or meeting someone in person' follows directly from 'in' (locative) + 'flesh' (the bodily/physical aspect), so a learner who knows the constituent meanings can infer physical presence. This locative + physical-noun composition is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'en carne y hueso') and therefore would be transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
In the flesh comes from the simple picture of meeting someone's real body, flesh, rather than a photo or a screen. So when you see someone 'in person', you are seeing them in the flesh.