Having flesh or a body of a particular kind, or having been given substance and detail to something previously bare or sketchy.
Past participle of 'flesh,' from Old English 'flæsc' meaning 'meat' or 'body.' The verb 'flesh' originally meant to clothe in flesh, and evolved to mean giving substance or reality to something abstract or incomplete.
When writers say they 'fleshed out' a story, they're literally using a meat metaphor to add body to ideas—like you're putting muscles and skin on a skeleton of a plot!
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