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What is the difference between flay and flense?

flay | flense | Synonyms |

Flense is a synonym of flay.



As verbs the difference between flay and flense

is that flay is to cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening) while flense is to strip the blubber or skin from, as from a whale, seal, etc.

As a noun flay

is a fright; a scare.

flay

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) flayen, flaien, fleien, from (etyl) .

Alternative forms

* (l) (Yorkshire) * (l), (l), (l), (l), (l), (l) (Scotland)

Verb

(en verb)
  • To cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening).
  • To frighten; scare; terrify.
  • To be fear-stricken.
    • Derived terms
    * (l)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A fright; a scare.
  • Fear; a source of fear; a formidable matter; a fearsome or repellent-looking individual.
    • Derived terms
    * (l)

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) flean from (etyl) .

    Verb

  • to strip skin off
  • to lash
    • Synonyms
    * (remove the skin of) fleece, flense, skin

    Anagrams

    *

    flense

    English

    Alternative forms

    * flench

    Verb

  • To strip the blubber or skin from, as from a whale, seal, etc.
  • * 1974 , (Lawrence Durrell), Monsieur , Faber & Faber 1992, p. 198:
    • In this domain right sex is capital, it flenses the feelings of all the poisonous artifices brought in by the think-box in the guise of clever ideas.
  • * 2001 , Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion , page 191 ISBN 0-380-97901-2:
    • His eyes sprang open. Umegat stared straight at him for the fraction of a second, and Cazaril felt flensed .
  • * 2004 , , The Runes of the Earth , page 5 ISBN 0-399-15232-6:
    • For that reason, among others, he would never evince the particular guantness, the cut and flagrant sense of purpose - all compromise and capacity for surrender flensed away - which had made Thomas Covenant ir-refusable to her.
  • * 2008 , Ian C. Esselemont, Return of the Crimson Guard , page 569 ISBN 978059305809:
    • It engulfed screaming soldiers who dissapeared before his eyes, their flesh, armor, even bone, flensed into a suspended mist that was heading straight for them.
  • * 2011 , Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores , page 106:
    • The Lemakot in the north strangled widows and threw them into the cremation pyres of their dead husbands. If they defeated potential invaders the New Irish hanged the vanquished from banyan trees, flensed their windpipes, removed their heads, left their intestines to jerk in the sun.

    Synonyms

    * flay, fleece, skin