Flay

//fleɪ// name, noun, verb

name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A fright; a scare. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal
  2. 2
    Fear; a source of fear; a formidable matter; a fearsome or repellent-looking individual. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal
Verb
  1. 1
    To cause to fly; put to flight; drive off (by frightening). Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive
  2. 2
    To strip the skin off; to skin.

    "The farmer flayed him as he had the bear, and so he had both bear-skin and fox-skin."

  3. 3
    strip the skin off wordnet
  4. 4
    To frighten; scare; terrify. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, transitive

    "If they'd let me have my way, I could have flayed him into shape"

  5. 5
    To lash or whip.
Show 1 more definition
  1. 6
    To be fear-stricken. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, dialectal, intransitive
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
fleeceassailattackbarkberatebleed

Example

More examples

"All straightway gird them to the feast. These flay / the ribs and thighs, and lay the entrails bare. / Those slice the flesh, and split the quivering prey, / and tend the fires and set the cauldrons in array."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English flayen, flaien, fleien, from Old English *flīeġan ("to cause to fly, put to flight, frighten"; found only in compounds: āflīeġan), from Proto-Germanic *flaugijaną (“to let fly, cause to fly”), causative of Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (“to fly”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English flen, from Old English flēan, from Proto-West Germanic *flahan, from Proto-Germanic *flahaną.

Related phrases

flay someone alivefear stricken

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.