Meaning of flesh one's maiden sword | Babel Free

Definitions

To experience or succeed in combat or struggle for the first time, as in the military or in politics.

dated, idiomatic

Examples

“Come brother Iohn, full brauely hast thou flesht / Thy mayden sword.”

“Well, Lord Althorpe has last night fleshed his maiden sword as a finance minister—and the result, I am sorry to say, is a failure.”

“Day after day, and year after year, we have heard the Native question discussed in an intelligible and statesmanlike manner, when the subject was brought forward in a practicable form, but not when presented in the style of a young member of a debating society endeavouring to “flesh his maiden sword.””

“The Ragged Guardists, when they did flesh their maiden swords on the 12th, could do nothing more spectacular than kidnap three Czech soldiers from Csap railway station.”

CEFR level