flesh one's maiden sword

Literally, to shed blood for the first time with a new sword; see flesh (“bury in flesh”), maiden (“virgin”), sword.

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)

1. (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.

• first blood