Word.ws English Dictionary

let blood

let blood verb: to extract blood from (a person, part of the body etc.).

Verb

let blood (third-person singular simple present lets blood, present participle letting blood, simple past and past participle let blood)

  1. (archaic, historical, transitive) To extract blood from (a person, part of the body etc.).
    • Is the foole sicke […] Alacke, let it blood.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • The Swiss […] let him blood immediately, without hesitation, being always provided with a case of lancets, against all accidents on the road.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 84, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume III, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
  2. (archaic, historical, intransitive) To bleed someone; to extract blood from a person, part of the body etc. for supposed therapeutic purposes, especially by phlebotomy.
  3. (figuratively) To make (someone or something) bleed, in a general sense; to cut; to kill.

Forms of let blood

third-person singular presentlets blood
present participleletting blood
past participlelet blood
pastlet blood

Questions about let blood

What does let blood mean?
Let blood means to extract blood from (a person, part of the body etc.).
What part of speech is let blood?
Let blood is a verb.
What is the past tense of let blood?
The past tense of let blood is let blood.

Words near let blood in the dictionary

  1. let a sleeping dog lie
  2. let a thousand flowers bloom
  3. let alone
  4. let along
  5. let be
  6. let blood
  7. let bygones be bygones
  8. let crazy stick its dick in you
  9. let down
  10. let drive
  11. let fluffy off the chain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: let blood (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.

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