Meanings
- literaryuncountableThe substance making up the central part of the trunk and branches of a tree, wood.
He cuts a five-foot stave from a poplar tree, peels off the bark, and spends an afternoon with a heated screwdriver burning into the white woodflesh the entire Morse and semaphore codes.
1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 3, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, Penguin, page 142 more examples
Klausner stared in horror at the place where the blade of the axe had sunk into the woodflesh of the tree; then gently he took the axe handle, worked the blade loose and threw the thing to the ground.
1949, Roald Dahl, “The Sound Machine”, in Roald Dahl: The Complete Short Stories, volume 2, Random House, published 2012The sun burned; the heat was all, consumed all—even the whacks of a twenty-eight-ounce framing hammer swatting a sixteen-penny nail one time two times and three through the ridge board and into the peak end of a rafter, even the rippling buzz of an electric saw chewing through woodflesh, even they fell short of cutting through this insatiable heat.
1993, Dagoberto Gilb, “Down in the West Texas Town”, in The Magic of Blood, New York: Grove Press, page 189
Origin
Cite this entry
woodflesh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodflesh
“woodflesh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodflesh. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “woodflesh,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/woodflesh.
Source: woodflesh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.