Talk:flush out

RFV discussion: September 2015–February 2016

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flush out

Created as an erroneous form of flesh out; however, Usage note at flesh out says not the same. Are there 2 "flush out"s?? Leasnam (talk) 14:18, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Flush out is a completely different term (not sure it's idiomatic but it's definitely real) as in "the flush the alcohol out of your system". Even if it were citable as a typo, why keep it? We don't have haev as a common typo for have, so why have this? Just delete it. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:38, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Isn't there a hunting term flush out meaning something along the lines of scaring birds out of bushes? Or is that also just [[flush]] + [[out]]? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Renard that the definition under challenge is simply wrong, in the sense that most speakers wouldn't use the expression and some might view someone using as either a moron or simply deficient in English language skills.

It's not limited to hunting, nor is it limited to the physical world. Some phrasal verb dictionaries, like AHD's have it. The etymology of flush is extra confusing in reality and even more so as we present it. Sadly the possible senses of flush used in flush out are distributed among the four etymologies we show. Some seem SoP, others not so much. I think that flush out merits an entry because the figurative senses of flush out do not use a common current definition of flush. More literal, physical senses seem to me to be covered by {{&lit|flush|out}}. DCDuring TALK 01:47, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

• Resolved: the challenged sense has been removed. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 22:05, 20 February 2016 (UTC)