fleshy

fleshy, fat, stout, portly, plump, rotund, chubby, corpulent, obese mean thick and heavy in body because of superfluous fat.

Fleshy and fat are not clearly discriminated in use, although fleshy may imply overabundance of muscular tissue and fat, of adipose tissue; when a derogatory connotation is intended fat is usually preferred

{

the unreasonably/a/ woman with legs like tree trunks— K. A. Porter

}

{

my appetite is plenty good enough, and I am about as fleshy as I was in Brooklyn— Whitman

}

{

a fleshy, jolly man

}

{

a dowdy fat woman

}

Stout implies a thickset, bulky figure or build, but it is often merely a euphemistic substitute for fat;

Portly adds to stout the implication of a more or less dignified and imposing appearance

{

a very stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots— Thackeray

}

{

one very stout gentleman, whose body and legs looked like half a gigantic roll of flannel, elevated on a couple of inflated pillowcases— Dickens

}

{

a large portly figure . . . the very beau ideal of an old abbot— J. W. Carlyle

}

{

an elderly gentleman, large and portly, and of remarkably dignified demeanor— Hawthorne

}

Plump implies a pleasing fullness of figure and well-rounded curves

{

the plump goddesses of Renaissance paintings

}

{

she became plump at forty

}

{

his wife was . . . plump where he was spare— Sayers

}

Rotund suggests the shape of a sphere; it often, in addition, connotes shortness or squatness

{

this pink-faced rotund specimen of prosperity— George Eliot

}

Chubby applies chiefly to children or to very short persons who are otherwise describable as rotund

{

a chubby cherub of a baby

}

Corpulent and obese imply a disfiguring excess of flesh or of fat

{

Mrs. Byron . . . was a short and corpulent person and rolled considerably in her gait— Thomas Moore

}

{

a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered . . . and though stout, not obese— Brontë

}

Analogous words: *muscular, brawny, burly, husky

Antonyms: skinny, scrawny

Contrasted words: *lean, lank, lanky, gaunt, rawboned, angular, spare: Chin, slim, slender, slight