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flesh out

verb

tr to give substance to (an argument, description, etc)
intr to expand or become more substantial

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, put flesh on the bones of . Give substance to, provide with details, amplify. For example, The editor told her to flesh out the story , or You need to put flesh on the bones of these characters . This metaphoric expression, alluding to clothing a nude body or adding flesh to a skeleton, was in the mid-1600s put simply as to flesh , the adverb out being added about two centuries later.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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