press the flesh
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To shake hands and mingle with people, often for political gain
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
nắm tay và giao lưu với mọi người, thường để đạt được lợi ích chính trị
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: touch people's skin
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
It is quite exhausting,’ said Max, almost bashfully, as he professionally pressed the flesh.
Sick of politicians lining up to press your flesh?
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “press the flesh” mean?
To shake hands and mingle with people, often for political gain Literally: touch people's skin
Is “press the flesh” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.