flesh one's maiden sword
English edit
Etymology edit
Literally, to shed blood for the first time with a new sword; see flesh (“bury in flesh”), maiden (“virgin”), sword.
Verb edit
flesh one's maiden sword (third-person singular simple present fleshes one's maiden sword, present participle fleshing one's maiden sword, simple past and past participle fleshed one's maiden sword)
- (idiomatic, dated) To experience or succeed in combat or struggle for the first time, as in the military or in politics.
- c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iv]:
- Come brother Iohn, full brauely hast thou flesht / Thy mayden sword.
- 1831, “Speakers and Speeches in Parliament, No. IV”, in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume 31, page 222:
- 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.
- 1869 July 22, William Fox, New Zealand. Parliamentary Debates: Fourth Session of the Fourth Parliament. Legislative Council and House of Representatives, volume 6, published 1869, page 79:
- 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.”
- 1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 286:
- 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.