bleed
bleed
Pronunciation
The IPA phonetic spelling for bleed is /bliːd/.
It's a single-syllable word. The sounds are:
/b/ - The initial consonant sound, as in ball.
/l/ - The liquid consonant sound, as in lip.
/iː/ - The long vowel sound, as in fleece.
/d/ - The final consonant sound, as in dog.
Word Form Variations
Infinitive: bleed
Third-person singular present: bleeds
Present participle: bleeding
Past tense & past participle: bled
Noun (singular): bleed
Noun (plural): bleeds
Definitions, Synonyms and Antonyms
Verb
1. (intransitive) To lose blood from the circulatory system as a result of an injury or medical condition. 🩸
Synonyms: hemorrhage, gush, ooze
Antonyms: clot, staunch, heal
2. (intransitive) To have color or dye spread from its intended area into an adjacent one, often when wet.
Synonyms: run, seep, spread, leach
Antonyms: set, hold, stay
3. (intransitive) To lose resources, such as money, staff, or support, gradually but persistently.
Synonyms: drain, hemorrhage, diminish
Antonyms: gain, accumulate, profit
4. (transitive) To exploit someone or something by persistently taking money or resources from them.
Synonyms: fleece, extort, drain, milk
Antonyms: enrich, support, subsidize
5. (transitive) To remove air or fluid from a closed system, like hydraulic brakes or a radiator.
Synonyms: drain, purge, release
Antonyms: fill, seal, pressurize
Noun
1. An instance of blood loss; a hemorrhage.
Synonyms: hemorrhage, effusion, blood loss
Antonyms: stanching, clotting
2. In printing and graphic design, the portion of an image or color block that extends beyond the intended trim line of a page.
Synonyms: overhang, extension, runoff
Antonyms: margin, safe area, border
Examples of Use
In General Discourse & Idioms
Medical/First Aid: "Apply pressure to the wound to help stop the bleeding."
Automotive/Home Maintenance: "You'll get much better performance if you bleed the brakes on your car."
Laundry: "I washed my new red socks with my white shirts, and now the color has bled all over everything."
Idiomatic Expression: "His constant demands for money are bleeding me dry."
In Media & Publications
Newspapers & Online News: "The report detailed how the mismanaged project continued to bleed taxpayer money for years." (The New York Times, May 2024).
Business Journals: "The legacy airline has been bleeding market share to low-cost carriers for over a decade." (The Wall Street Journal, September 2025).
Graphic Design Blogs: "For a professional finish, make sure your artwork extends to the bleed area of the template before sending it to the printer." (Adobe Create Magazine, March 2025).
Medical Journalism: "Surgeons worked quickly to locate and stop the internal bleed." (WebMD, July 2024).
In Entertainment & Literature
Film: "If it bleeds, we can kill it." (Dialogue from the film Predator, 1987).
Music: "But I bleed, I bleed / And I breathe, I breathe now." (Lyrics from the song "Creep" by Radiohead, 1992).
Literature: "All the old wounds commenced to bleed afresh." (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale).
Video Games: In many role-playing games, a common status effect is "bleed," which causes a character to lose health over time. (Dialogue: "Watch out, that attack causes bleeding!").
10 Famous Quotes Using Bleed
If you prick us, do we not bleed? (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)
Do you bleed? ...You will. (Dialogue from the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice)
A writer is a person who has to write, who has to bleed on paper. (Paul Auster)
You can't just make me bleed my own blood. (Dialogue from the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story)
Let the corporations bleed. (Kalle Lasn)
Let them bleed... let them wash their sins in their own blood. (Dialogue from the video game Diablo III)
My heart started to bleed, and I felt myself becoming homeless. (DJ Quik)
I'm a man! And a man has the right to bleed to death. (Dialogue from the film The Hospital)
And if you bleed, I'll apply to you my surgery. (William Shakespeare, As You Like It)
Let me bleed you, then you will be more amiable. (William Blake)
Etymology
In simple terms, the word bleed is an ancient English word that has always been directly connected to the word blood.
The story of the word begins in Old English, where the verb was blēdan. This word was formed directly from the noun for blood, which was blōd. So, from the very beginning, to blēdan literally meant "to lose blōd," or to lose blood. It's one of the most straightforward word origins you can find.
If we go even further back, before English was a distinct language, its Germanic ancestor had a word that meant something like "to mark or cover with blood."
What's truly fascinating is that both "bleed" and "blood" can be traced back to an even more ancient root word from thousands of years ago that meant "to bloom" or "to blossom." The connection seems to be the idea of something bursting forth. Just as a flower blossoms from a bud or sap rises in a plant, blood was seen as the vital fluid that could burst forth from the body.
First Known Use and Meaning: The first known use of bleed dates back to the Old English period (before the year 1150). Its meaning has remained remarkably consistent for over a thousand years: to lose blood from the body. All the other modern meanings—like colors bleeding on fabric or a company bleeding money—are metaphors based on this original, literal idea of losing a vital substance that should stay contained.
Phrases + Idioms Containing Bleed
Bleeding heart: A term for a person who is considered excessively or naively compassionate and liberal in their social or political views.
To bleed someone dry: To drain a person, company, or entity of all its money and resources.
My heart bleeds for you: An expression of sympathy that can be either sincere or, more often, sarcastic.
To bleed into: When one thing (like a color, problem, or aspect of life) begins to spread and affect another area where it doesn't belong.
Bleeding edge: Describing a technology or innovation that is so new it is still considered risky, unproven, or unreliable; a step beyond the "cutting edge."
To bleed out: To die from extensive blood loss; it is also used metaphorically to describe the slow, unstoppable loss of a vital resource like money or support.
To bleed red ink: A business idiom meaning a company is losing money and operating at a financial deficit.
To make your ears bleed: A hyperbolic expression for a sound that is extremely loud, harsh, or unpleasant to hear.
To bleed for a cause: To suffer, make great sacrifices, or give everything for something you strongly believe in.
To bleed the brakes: A common phrase for the mechanical process of removing trapped air from the hydraulic lines of a vehicle's braking system.
Vocabulary-Based Stories from SEA
Source Information
Definition of bleed from The Academic Glossary at Self Exploration Academy, a Urikville Press Publication. © All rights reserved.
