Library / English Dictionary

BLOODY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: bloodied    , bloodier    , bloodiest   

 I. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having or covered with or accompanied by blood

Example:

a bloody fight

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

blood-filled (containing blood)

bloodstained; gory (covered with blood)

bloodsucking (drawing blood from the body of another)

bloodthirsty; bloody-minded; sanguinary (marked by eagerness to resort to violence and bloodshed)

crimson; red; violent (characterized by violence or bloodshed)

homicidal; murderous (characteristic of or capable of or having a tendency toward killing another human being)

butcherly; gory; sanguinary; sanguineous; slaughterous (accompanied by bloodshed)

internecine (characterized by bloodshed and carnage for both sides)

Also:

merciless; unmerciful (having or showing no mercy)

Antonym:

bloodless (free from blood or bloodshed)

Derivation:

blood (the fluid (red in vertebrates) that is pumped through the body by the heart and contains plasma, blood cells, and platelets)

bloodiness (a disposition to shed blood)

bloodiness (the state of being bloody)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Informal intensifiers

Example:

you flaming idiot

Synonyms:

bally; blinking; bloody; blooming; crashing; flaming; fucking

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

unmitigated (not diminished or moderated in intensity or severity; sometimes used as an intensifier)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cover with blood

Example:

bloody your hands

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "bloody" is one way to...):

cover; spread over (form a cover over)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 III. (adverb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extremely

Example:

Why are you so all-fired aggressive?

Synonyms:

all-fired; all-firedly; bloody; damn

Classified under:

Adverbs

Domain usage:

intensifier; intensive (a modifier that has little meaning except to intensify the meaning it modifies)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Their rear ranks were already passing out of sight ere the new-comers were urging their panting, foaming horses up the slope which had been the scene of that long drawn and bloody fight.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Well, last night about ten o’clock in ’e comes into my bar, and the three bloodiest rogues in London at ’is ’eels.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is the most common non-O157 E. coli strain that is the causative agent of bloody diarrhea and hemolytic uremic syndrome in the United States.

(Escherichia coli strain O111, NCI Thesaurus)

The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in his pocket and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from nose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The males were exterminated, Ape Town was destroyed, the females and young were driven away to live in bondage, and the long rivalry of untold centuries had reached its bloody end.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)