bleeding
Syllables: bleed·ing/ˈbliːdɪŋ/
bleeding is the present participle and gerund of bleed.
Adjective
bleeding (not comparable)
- Losing blood.
- The burnt and bleeding man staggered to his feet, dazed and unbelieving, and asked the startled townspeople who came running whether his fireman and guard were safe. He was kept away from the smouldering crater where his engine had been, and taken to hospital.2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43
- extreme, outright; bloody, blasted.
- You are a bleeding liar. Truth is of no interest to you at all.1999, Paul Milne, “Why Kari Kauffman Is A Bald Faced Liar” in comp.software.year-2000
- "You are a bleeding idiot sometimes, but I love you and", Harry hands him the first gift Severus ever gave him and says, "One hundred and sixteen."2004, DrusillaDax, “Battlefields”, in Sensus Fanfiction Archive, retrieved 08 Oct 2014
Noun
bleeding (countable and uncountable, plural bleedings)
- The flow or loss of blood from a damaged blood vessel.
- Internal bleeding is often difficult to detect and can lead to death in a short time.
- An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic […] real kidneys[…]. But they are nothing like as efficient, and can cause bleeding, clotting and infection—not to mention inconvenience for patients, who typically need to be hooked up to one...2013 June 1, “A better waterworks”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 5 (Technology Quarterly)
- Bloodletting.
- Notwithstanding the employ of general and local bleeding, blisters, &c., the patient died on the fourth day after entrance.1833, R. J. Bertin, translated by Charles W. Chauncy, Treatise on the Diseases of the Heart, and Great Vessels, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blnachard, page 24
- Depletion of a given resource; draining, sapping, weakening.
- the bleeding of the budget
- the bleeding of the treasury
- Menstruation.
- Owing to the prudery of Victorian times, people hardly dared talk about bleeding at all — even privately, let alone publicly.
- Synonyms:
- Aunt Flo, Aunt Frieda, Aunt Rose, blob, blood sports, Bloody Mary, blowjob week, breaching the beaver dam, catamenia, caught short
- The migration of impressions (dents), ink, or both through the substrate (paper or otherwise).
- Synonyms:
- bleed-through, print-through
- Printing past the edge of the leaf (past the trim).
Meaning of bleed
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.
Adverb
bleeding (not comparable)
- used as an intensifier: Extremely.
- His car's motor is bleeding smoking down the motorway.
- It turns out he was too bleeding cheap to ever drain the oil.
Synonyms of bleeding
- Aunt Flo
- Aunt Frieda
- Aunt Rose
- blob
- blood sports
- Bloody Mary
- blowjob week
- breaching the beaver dam
- catamenia
- caught short
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- Charlie
- closed for maintenance
- come crook
- country cousin
- crimson tide
- crimson wave
- curse
- curse of Eve
- curse of Tom
- dropping clots
- entertaining the general
- fallen to the Communists
- fall off the roof
- flowers
- flashing the red flag
- flying baker
- flying the red flag
- friend
- grandma George
- granny
- granny grunts
- have the painters in
- have one's moons
- have the rag on
- high tide
- holy week
- illness
- in the red tent
- Jennie
- lady problems
Forms of bleeding
| plural | bleedings |
|---|
Origin of bleeding
By surface analysis, bleed + -ing.
Words formed from bleeding
- bleeding edge
- bleeding-edge
- bleeding-heart
- bleeding heart
- bleeding heck
- bleeding hell
- bleeding Nora
- bleeding oak crust
- bleeding sickness
- bleeding stump
- bleeding tooth fungus
- nonbleeding
- unbleeding
- antibleeding
- bleeding time
- breakthrough bleeding
- free-bleeding
- free bleeding
- implantation bleeding
- love-lies-bleeding
- microbleeding
- nosebleeding
- reflex bleeding
- stop the bleeding
Phrases with bleeding
Words that rhyme with bleeding
Questions about bleeding
- What does bleeding mean?
- Bleeding means losing blood.
- What is bleeding the present participle and gerund of?
- Bleeding is the present participle and gerund of bleed.
- What part of speech is bleeding?
- Bleeding can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce bleeding?
- Bleeding is pronounced /ˈbliːdɪŋ/.
Words near bleeding in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bleeding (page history and authors); bleed (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: en-us-bleeding.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bleeding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bleeding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.