Word.ws English Dictionary

written in blood

written in blood adjective: having arisen out of tragedy.

Adjective

written in blood (not comparable)

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic) Having arisen out of tragedy.
    • Safety rules are written in blood...they exist because someone was hurt.1997 June, Michael Brady, Jerry Berryhill, Tom McCormack, “'How We've Gone 5 Million Man-Hours without a Lost Time Accident'”, in Modern Casting, American Foundrymen's Society, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN...
    • […] best practices are expensive and cumbersome, which is why safety regulations are usually written in blood.2021, James W. Rappaport, “Air Transport and the Pandemic: Missteps and Lessons Learned”, in Issues in Aviation Law and Policy, volume 20, number 2, Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development...
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic) Incredibly harsh or strict; brutal.
    • The Colony was ruled during that period by laws written in blood; and its history shows how the narrow selfishness of despotic power could counteract the best efforts of benevolence.1874, Thomas Hicks Wynne, General Assembly of Virginia, “Introductory Note”, in Thomas Hicks Wynne, editor, Colonial records of Virginia, R. F. Walker, →LCCN, retrieved 07 Apr 2026, page vi
    • […]and the home consumers have to pay the expense of maintaining and defending the empire, often with harsh and cruel laws ‘written in blood’.2019 August 8, Ramesh Chandra, “Adam Smith, Allyn Young, Amartya Sen and the Role of the State”, in History of Economics Review, volume 78, number 1, published 10 January 2021, →DOI, page 37
    Synonyms:
    draconian

Examples of written in blood in a sentence

  • The enduring lesson of Bhopal is that laws written in blood must be enforced with unwavering political will.2023 September, Nishant Dubey, “THE BREATH OF LAW: JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND POLICY INTERVENTIONS FOR AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION IN POST-BHOPAL...
  • As far as I'm concerned, that federal consent decree is written in blood, the blood of those who have been brutally murdered at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.2025 May 22, Matt Sepic, Michel Martin, 3:04 from the start, in DOJ dismisses investigations of police in Minneapolis and Louisville: NPR...

Synonyms of written in blood

Questions about written in blood

What does written in blood mean?
Written in blood means having arisen out of tragedy.
How do you use written in blood in a sentence?
The enduring lesson of Bhopal is that laws written in blood must be enforced with unwavering political will.
What part of speech is written in blood?
Written in blood is an adjective.

Words near written in blood in the dictionary

  1. written checks one couldn't cash
  2. written cheques one couldn't cash
  3. written down
  4. written for the drawer
  5. written in
  6. written in blood
  7. written in someone's face
  8. written in stone
  9. written in the stars
  10. written itself
  11. written off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: written in 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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