bleed
/ˈbliːd/
bleed verb: to shed blood through an injured blood vessel.
Verb
bleed (third-person singular simple present bleeds, present participle bleeding, simple past and past participle bled)
- To shed blood through an injured blood vessel.
- If her nose bleeds, try to use ice.
- To menstruate.
- You haven't bled. It's been over a month since your arrival, and you haven't bled.2020 December 25, Chris Van Dusen, “Diamond of the First Water”, in Bridgerton, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Lady Portia Featherington
- To let or draw blood from.
- "What did they die of?" I asked.
"Fevers. The doctor came and bled them and purged them, but they still died."
"He bled and purged babies?"
"They were two and three. He said it would break the fever. And it did. But they ... they died anyway."1979, Octavia E. Butler, Kindred, Beacon Press (2024), page 239
- "What did they die of?" I asked.
- To take large amounts of money from.
- To steadily lose (something vital).
- The company was bleeding talent.
- To spread from the intended location and stain the surrounding cloth or paper.
- Ink traps counteract bleeding.
- The ink bled only a little; if one raised the index card to one’s eye, it was possible to see the microscopic wisps and flicks seep out from the intended lines and curves out into the paper’s grain.2020, Eley Williams, The Liarʼs Dictionary, William Heinemann, page 201
- To remove air bubbles from a pipe containing other fluids.
- To tap off high-pressure gas (usually air) from a system that produces high-pressure gas primarily for another purpose.
- At low engine speeds, valves open to bleed some of the highly-compressed air from the later compressor stages, helping to prevent engine surging.
- High-pressure air bled from the APU is used to spin up the engines and run the APU generator and hydraulic pump, and can also be used to pressurise the cabin if necessary.
- To bleed on; to make bloody.
- To show one's group loyalty by showing (its associated color) in one's blood.
- He was a devoted Vikings fan: he bled purple.
- To lose sap, gum, or juice.
- A tree or a vine bleeds when tapped or wounded.
- To issue forth, or drop, like blood from an incision.
- For me the balm shall bleed.1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC
Show 3 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
- To destroy the environment where another phonological rule would have applied.
- Labialization bleeds palatalization.
- Antonyms:
- feed
- To (cause to) extend to the edge of the page, without leaving any margin.
- Full-page and double-page colour advertisements in the Sunday colour magazines usually bleed off the page' (or are 'bled to the margin'), […]1998, Macmillan Dictionary of Marketing and Advertising, page 35
- Too, bleeding beyond margins provides editors with several picas of space for more layout.2004, Dorothy A. Bowles, Diane L. Borden, Creative Editing, page 361
- To lose money.
- Most of the sectors are bleeding, particularly the resources sector.
Noun
bleed (countable and uncountable, plural bleeds)
- An incident of bleeding, as in haemophilia.
- A system for tapping hot, high-pressure air from a gas turbine engine for purposes such as cabin pressurization and airframe anti-icing.
- When taking off at high altitude or at near-maximum weight, the bleeds have to be turned off temporarily, as they decrease engine power somewhat.
- A narrow edge around a page layout, to be printed but cut off afterwards (added to allow for slight misalignment, especially with pictures that should run to the edge of the finished sheet).
- A margin left at the edges of a shot to allow for the picture being cropped when it arrives at viewers' screens.
- The situation where sound is picked up by a microphone from a source other than that which is intended.
- The removal of air bubbles from a pipe containing other fluids.
- The phenomenon of in-character feelings affecting a player's feelings or actions outside of the game.
bleed meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
bleed in Hindi
- lose blood
- रक्तस्राव raktasrāv
bleed in Tamil
- இரத்தக் கசிவு
bleed in Urdu
- خون بہنا, فسد کھولنا
bleed in Bengali
- lose blood
- রক্ত ঝরা rokto jhora, রক্ত পড়া rokto poṛa
More languagesFewer languages
- bleed in Malayalam
- ചോരയൊലിക്കുക cōrayolikkuka, ചോർന്നൊലിക്കുക cōṟnnolikkuka
- bleed in Kannada
- ಸೋರು
- bleed in Nepali
- रक्तस्राव raktasrāv
- bleed in Tagalog
- dumugo, duguan, magkalat, magtae
- bleed in Arabic
- نَزَفَ nazafa
- bleed in Persian
- خون آمدن xun âmadan, خونریزی xunrizi
- bleed in Thai
- ตกเลือด dtòk lêuat
- bleed in Vietnamese
- chảy máu, xuất huyết
Examples of bleed in a sentence
- Most slang begins in small communities, but some words bleed out into wider society over time.
- Look at those poor little children without shoes on their feet. My heart bleeds for them.
- Slaughtered livestock is usually bled dry prior to butchering.
Antonyms of bleed
Forms of bleed
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | bleeds |
| present participle | bleeding |
| past participle | bled |
| past | bled |
| Noun | |
| plural | bleeds |
Origin of bleed
From Middle English bleden, from Old English blēdan (“to bleed”), from Proto-West Germanic *blōdijan, from Proto-Germanic *blōdijaną (“to bleed”), from *blōþą (“blood”). Cognates Cognate with Scots blede, bleid (“to bleed”), Saterland Frisian bläide (“to bleed”), West Frisian bliede (“to bleed”), Dutch bloeden (“to bleed”), Low German blöden (“to bleed”), German bluten (“to bleed”), Danish bløde (“to bleed”), Swedish blöda (“to bleed”).
Words formed from bleed
- bebleed
- bleedable
- bleed dry
- bleeder
- bleed for
- bleed for someone
- bleeding edge
- bleeding heart
- bleed like a pig
- bleed like a stuck hog
- bleed like a stuck pig
- bleed out
- bleed red ink
- bleed the lizard
- bleed the monkey
- bleed white
- brain bleed
- counterbleed
- crossbleed start
- forbleed
- free bleed
- Heartbleed
- if it bleeds, it leads
- I'm bleeding
- macrobleed
- microbleed
- nosebleed
- outbleed
- overbleed
- rebleed
- we all bleed red
- bench bleed
- bleed air
- bleed-edge
- bleed edge
- bleed hole
- bleed key
- bleed-sheet
- bleed-through
- nose bleed
Phrases with bleed
Words that rhyme with bleed
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- proceed
- stampede
- concede
- accede
- deed
- exceed
- need
- bede
- knead
- mislead
- plead
- rede
- swede
- cede
- creed
- godspeed
- heed
- intercede
- keyed
- leed
- meed
- precede
- recede
- tumbleweed
- a friend in need is a friend indeed
- beread
- greed
- he'd
- indeed
- interbreed
- kneed
- mead
- secede
- she'd
- sneed
- steed
- supersede
- underfeed
- we'd
- ye'd
- agreed
- anasheed
- aniseed
- atheed
- caid
- co-feed
- cofeed
- counterplead
Questions about bleed
- What does bleed mean?
- Bleed means to shed blood through an injured blood vessel.
- What is bleed in Hindi?
- Bleed in Hindi is रक्तस्राव (raktasrāv). See Bleed meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is bleed?
- Bleed can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce bleed?
- Bleed is pronounced /ˈbliːd/.
- What is the past tense of bleed?
- The past tense of bleed is bled.
Words near bleed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bleed (page history and authors); bleed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bleed (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bleed (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bleed.wav.
Cite this entry: “bleed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bleed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.