Meanings
plural pounds of flesh
- idiomaticsensitiveSomething which is owed and which will be hurtful or difficult to provide; a debt owed to someone who is merciless and demanding.
You must be under the impression that I'm one of these damned New England sharks that get their pound of flesh off the widow and orphan.
1915 October, Willa Sibert Cather, chapter I, in The Song of the Lark, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], →OCLC, part V (Doctor Archie’s Adventure), page 3482 more examples
When I wake up in my makeup / It's too early for that dress / Wilted and faded somewhere in Hollywood / I'm glad I came here with your pound of flesh
1998, “Celebrity Skin”, performed by Hole[…] [Trinamool] Congress [Party] will need to strike deals with other regional allies, such as Mulayam Singh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh. Their pound of flesh will be anti-reform, too.
2012 September 22, “Indian Reform: At Last”, in The Economist
Origin
From Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, in which Antonio literally owes a pound of his flesh to the moneylender Shylock.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pound of flesh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pound%20of%20flesh
“pound of flesh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pound%20of%20flesh. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pound of flesh,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pound%20of%20flesh.
Source: pound of flesh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.