Eggcorn Forum

I stubbled into a thicket, unwittingly, of flesh, flash, fledge, fletch and flush, led by a desire to fledge out a suspicion about flesh out. I shoulda poked around in the catacombs of this forum first, it goes without saying. We have flush >> flesh, though with no semantic justification suggested; flesh >> flush, with no justification; flush out for flesh out, wherein no justification is ventured. Then at first brush << at first blush, fleshed out by Kem, at first flush << at first blush, thanks to Pat, as was in the first flesh of (niiice), and flush out << flesh out by Dave T.
We can tag on hot flashes for hot flushes, one of those nice evidential acorn<<eggcorn reversals – or is it? Hot flushes and flashes arose together and were neck and neck until 1970 when the latter took over. Hot flushes have generally been favoured in British sources.

Here’re some new takes. First, “fledge out” for “flesh out”. This one is so natural that it’s hard to say that the “fledging out” is an eggcorn. “Fledge out”, in budgies, means to gain your wings, to mature. “Flesh out” refers metaphorically, in my understanding, to adding muscle, sinew and skin to a bare-bones description.

Particularly in the first chapter (where else?) there’s quite a bit of slice of life content to fledge out all the characters
game review

It seemed that as the story progressed, you couldn’t be bothered to fledge out any of the story’s branches
fic review

I’ll make a character for this, but I’m not sure whether I want to join or not yet, depends on how long it takes to fledge out that character.
Game development

Fledging arose as an alternate spelling of fletching. I associate the former with feather sprouting and the latter with arrow making.

as a fluid multi tiered political analyst i tend to use an open ended discourse, trying to fletch out the nuances of an idea
activist board

the World Wide Web and all the information on it have enabled me to fletch out stories from my past.
family history blog

“Fully flashed” characters would be those who appear starkly lit, in pavarazzi flash light.

Joey is not just a horse but a fully flashed out character in this movie.
review

You’ve managed to make Elise an incredibly interesting, fully flashed out character I rooted and felt compassion for.
fanfic love

Here are more “fully flushed out” characters” from searches undertaken before I saw that the field had been covered, as noted above. I include to begin with the Online ED’s exegesis of flush in all its polysemous polydexterity.

flush (v.)
“fly up suddenly,” c.1300, perhaps imitative of the sound of beating wings, or related to flash via its variant flushe. Probably not connected to Old French flux, source of flush (n.).
Transitive meaning “to cause to fly, start” is first attested mid-15c. The sense of “spurt, rush out suddenly, flow with force” (1540s) is probably the same word, with the connecting notion being “sudden movement,” but its senses seem more to fit the older ones of flash (now all transferred to this word except in flash flood). Meaning “cleanse a drain, etc., with a rush of water” is from 1789. The noun sense of “sudden redness in the face” (1620s) probably belongs here, too. The verb in this sense is from 1660s. “A very puzzling word” [Weekley].
flush (adj.)
1550s, “perfect, faultless;” c.1600, “abundant; plentifully supplied (with money, etc.),” perhaps from flush (v.) through the notion of a river running full, hence level with its banks. Meaning “even, level” is from 1620s.
flush (n.)
“hand of cards all of one suit,” 1520s, perhaps from Middle French flus (15c.), from Old French flux “a flowing,” with the sense of “a run” (of cards), from Latin fluxus “flux,” from fluere “to flow” (see fluent). The form in English probably was influenced by flush (v.).

A royal flush sounds more valuable than the royal flux or a royal flu, so that was an eggcorn for the better.

Casablanca Analysis- Please respond to the following questions in full flushed-out paragraphs.
Film course exam

He has provided us not just with memorable lines and phrases, but full, flushed-out, three-dimensional characters from Juliet to Cordelia to King Lear.
High school paper

Pilarski could easily let her character turn to caricature, but she admirably makes Bev into a sympathetic full-flushed person.
Theater review

This book was well paced, definitely well-written, and the characters were fully flushed out.
“review:http://www.faesutherland.com/skyriders.html

Soap Operas were able to build decades of success by constructing a fully flushed setting
TV fan