meat

Less common meanings

4. 4
   fruit fleshnoununcountable

   The relatively thick, solid part of a fruit, nut, or similar food.

   She scraped the white meat from the inside of the coconut shell.

   The walnut's meat had dried out and turned bitter.

   Similarflesh, kernel, pulp

5. 5
   penisnounslangvulgarcountable or uncountable

   A man's penis, in coarse slang.

   After a few drinks he started bragging to his friends about his meat.

   He joked that the cold water had done his meat no favors.

   Similarcock, dick

   Note

   Coarse slang whose natural home is explicit sexual writing, from Nancy Friday's Women on Top (1991) to John Patrick's Play Hard, Score Big. It almost always comes with a possessive, as in his meat or Jim's meat. That possessive is usually what tips a sentence out of the kitchen. Treat it as vulgar: it is unsuitable for polite company and a hazard for innocent talk about meat as food. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • Nancy Friday's Women on Top was first published in 1991. en.wikipedia.org
   • Women on Top and John Patrick's Play Hard, Score Big contain examples of meat meaning penis in explicit sexual writing. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   sweet spotnouncountable or uncountable

   The sweet spot of a bat or club: the area that delivers the cleanest, most powerful contact with the ball.

   She got the fastball right on the meat of the bat, and it rocketed deep into left field.

   Golfers aim to strike the ball with the meat of the club for maximum distance.

   UsageMost often on the meat of the bat or club.

   Similarmiddle, center

   Note

   A players' word shared by cricket, golf and baseball, and nearly always used in a prepositional phrase: on the meat of the bat, or of the club. The image parallels the solid part of a fruit: the thick middle of the striking face, as opposed to its thin edges. It pairs with verbs of contact, so a batter hits or catches the ball on the meat.

7. 7
   foodnounarchaiccountable or uncountable

   Food in general, especially solid food, or a particular dish of food.

   As full of fun and frolic as an egg is full of meat.

   1879, Silas Hocking, Her Benny

   I was anhongred, and ye gave me meate. I thursted, and ye gave me drinke.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt (Tyndale Bible)

   Note

   The general "food" sense the word began with, and the trap in older texts. Florio's Montaigne (1603) describes a man who pined away "by abstaining from all manner of meat." He stopped eating altogether; he did not merely give up flesh. Today the sense survives in dialect and in the pair meat and drink. Elsewhere it reads as deliberately old, and most readers will hear the flesh meaning. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • Meat originally meant food in general. en.wikipedia.org
   • John Florio's translation of Montaigne was first published in 1603. pages.uoregon.edu
   • Florio's translation contains the quoted wording in a description of a man starving himself. pages.uoregon.edu
   • Meat in this passage means food altogether, so the man stopped eating rather than merely avoiding animal flesh. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   dim brutenounslangcountable or uncountable

   A stupid but brawny person; a meathead.

   Similarmeathead, oaf, lunk, lunkhead

   Note

   Like meathead, this slang noun is a jab at someone big and dim. It often works as a form of address, as in "Nice catch, meat." Used that way, tone decides whether it teases or insults. Said about someone, as in "a bit of a meat," it is plainly dismissive. Keep it to casual talk among people who will take it in the right spirit.

9. 9
   mealnounarchaiccountable or uncountable

   A meal; an occasion of eating taken at a particular time.

   And hit cam to passe, thatt Jesus satt at meate in his housse.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt (Tyndale Bible)

   Note

   The occasion of eating rather than the food, and best known in a fixed phrase: to sit at meat is to be at table. Tyndale's New Testament of 1526 has Jesus who "satt at meate in his housse." A grace said before meat belongs to the same use. Both phrasings are archaic, and in modern writing they sound scriptural. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • Meat historically meant a meal; sitting at meat meant being at table eating. en.wiktionary.org
   • William Tyndale's complete New Testament was first printed in 1526. tyndale.org
   • The quoted wording describes Jesus in Tyndale's 1526 New Testament. en.wiktionary.org
   • Grace before meat refers to a prayer before a meal. edod.org
10. 10
    nounobsoletecountable or uncountable

    Meal or flour; grain that has been ground.

    Note

    The oddest branch of the old food sense is ground grain. English meal can mean both a sitting at table and coarse flour. At one time meat covered both, this sense and the "meal" as an occasion. The use is obsolete. A modern reader who meets "sacks of meat" will picture a butcher's shop, not a mill. Source

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • Meat historically had a general food sense. en.wiktionary.org
    • Meal can denote an eating occasion. en.wiktionary.org
    • Meal can also denote ground grain or coarse flour. en.wiktionary.org
    • Meat formerly meant a meal as an occasion. en.wiktionary.org
    • Meat also had a now-obsolete sense meaning meal or flour. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    nounAustralia

    A totem, or by extension the clan or clansman associated with it.