letting blood

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]...
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.