lifeblood
/ˈlaɪfˌblʌd/
lifeblood noun: blood that is needed for continued life; blood regarded as the seat of life.
Noun
lifeblood (usually uncountable, plural lifebloods)
- Blood that is needed for continued life; blood regarded as the seat of life.
- [Y]ou desire his mana, yet you respect his tabu, for in you and him alike runs the common life-blood.1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., page 62
- You didn't come to me in time. And by the time you came to me that fool of a doctor had bled and leeched the lifeblood out of Timmy.circa 1980, George Spelvin, Petticoat Loose, Act II, Scene 1, published in George Spelvin's theatre book, volume 3
- That which is required for continued existence or function.
- Gasoline is the lifeblood of the modern city.
- Information is the lifeblood of the United States and the world.1991, Winn Schwartau, Terminal Compromise
- Synonyms:
- essence
lifeblood meaning in Malayalam and Tagalog
lifeblood in Malayalam
- life (force), essential constituent, driving force
- ജീവരക്തം, ജീവൻ, ജീവശക്തി, ജീവനശക്തി, ജീവസാരം, അവിഭാജ്യഘടകം
lifeblood in Tagalog
- figurative: that which is required for existence
- dugo ng buhay
Examples of lifeblood in a sentence
- It was she who stopped the lifeblood flow when Karl misswung an axe until Herta could come.2014, Andre Norton, Tales from High Hallack:
- It was as if the roads were veins that bled off lifeblood but never pumped it back in.2006, James E. Kibler, Memory's Keep, page 55:
- 'We want to be able to market some of these small stations and the lifeblood lines where we currently have short trains in service.'2019 October, Tony Miles, Philip Sherratt, “EMR kicks off new era”, in Modern Railways, page 56:
- Like most Victorian Railways, freight was the line's lifeblood.2020 May 20, Paul Bigland, “East London Line's renaissance”, in Rail, page 46:
Synonyms of lifeblood
Forms of lifeblood
| plural | lifebloods |
|---|---|
| alternative form | life blood |
| alternative form | life's blood |
Origin of lifeblood
From life + blood. Compare English heart-blood (“lifeblood”).
Questions about lifeblood
- What does lifeblood mean?
- Lifeblood means blood that is needed for continued life; blood regarded as the seat of life.
- What is lifeblood in Malayalam?
- Lifeblood in Malayalam is ജീവരക്തം, ജീവൻ, ജീവശക്തി. See Lifeblood meaning in Malayalam.
- How do you use lifeblood in a sentence?
- It was she who stopped the lifeblood flow when Karl misswung an axe until Herta could come.
- What part of speech is lifeblood?
- Lifeblood is a noun.
- How do you pronounce lifeblood?
- Lifeblood is pronounced /ˈlaɪfˌblʌd/ (US).
- What is the plural of lifeblood?
- The plural of lifeblood is lifebloods.
Words near lifeblood in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lifeblood (page history and authors); lifeblood (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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)-Flame, not lame-lifeblood.wav.
Cite this entry: “lifeblood.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lifeblood. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.