What does 'a pound of flesh' mean?

Answer 1

"A pound of flesh" means sixteen ounces or 454 grams of human tissue, either skin or muscle. In Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, the moneylender Shylock loans the merchant Antonio 3000 ducats (a unit of currency originating in Venice), for the period of three months. If the loan is not repaid in time, the contract says that Shylock may take a pound of Antonio's flesh from any part of his body Shylock chooses.

In a figurative sense, then, "a pound of flesh" can be used to describe payment which is excessive or cruel. Likewise, a person who insists on an excessive or unfair payment can be said to be insisting on his pound of flesh as Shylock did.

Answer 2

There actually is no such phrase. People using it are confusing the phrase "a pound of flesh" from the Shakespeare play The Merchant of Venice with the title of the 2008 Will Smith movie "Seven Pounds"

In the Shakespeare play the pound of flesh is the penalty for defaulting on a loan. You default on your mortgage and the bank gets your arm.

The Will Smith movie is not about defaulting on a loan, but about making up for your mistakes. In the film Smith's character must help seven people to make up for the seven people he accidentally killed.

Answer 3

heart, lung, kidney, bone marrow, liver and eyes and the seventh is a house. From a Will Smith film where he donates seven body parts and his beach house in order to atone for seven people lost in an accident that he caused

Answer 4

"Seven pounds of flesh" is most like a combination of the idiom "pound of flesh" and the movie "Seven Pounds." The movie title "Seven Pounds" refers to seven debts owed by the lead character. The expression "pound of flesh" refers to a debt that is justly owed, but is nonetheless an unreasonable demand. E.g. A landlord evicts a tenant who can't pay the rent, even though then tenant has been sick and unable to work. Others may say the Landlord is getting his pound of flesh from the unfortunate tenant. The idiom "pound of flesh" was coined in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," Act IV, scene i

Answer 5

No. It derives from a quotation by Shylock in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Shylock demands a pound of flesh as repayment of a debt. Seven Pounds (2008) used the reference as the main characters feeling that he must repay the debt of seven lives he feels responsible for taking.

Answer 6

What is the Biblical reference seven pounds of flesh? What does seven pounds of flesh mean? What is the Biblical reference seven pounds of flesh? What does seven pounds of flesh mean?

Answer 7

It's actually "pound of flesh" and is Shakespearean in origin (from "Merchant of Venice") meaning "the price to pay".