blood Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the fluid (red in vertebrates) that is pumped through the body by the heart and contains plasma, blood cells, and platelets
    • blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and carries away waste products
    • the ancients believed that blood was the seat of the emotions
  2. noun temperament or disposition
    • a person of hot blood
  3. noun a dissolute man in fashionable society
    rake; rip; rakehell; roue; profligate.
  4. noun the descendants of one individual
    lineage; pedigree; parentage; descent; bloodline; ancestry; stemma; line; stock; line of descent; origin; blood line.
    • his entire lineage has been warriors
  5. noun people viewed as members of a group
    • we need more young blood in this organization
  6. verb smear with blood, as in a hunting initiation rite, where the face of a person is smeared with the blood of the kill

WordNet

Blood noun
Etymology
OE. blod, blood, AS. bld; akin to D. bloed, OHG. bluot, G. blut, Goth, bl, Sw. & Dan. blod; prob. fr. the same root as E. blow to bloom. See Blow to bloom.
Definitions
  1. The fluid which circulates in the principal vascular system of animals, carrying nourishment to all parts of the body, and bringing away waste products to be excreted. See under Arterial. ✍ The blood consists of a liquid, the plasma, containing minute particles, the blood corpuscles. In the invertebrate animals it is usually nearly colorless, and contains only one kind of corpuscles; but in all vertebrates, except Amphioxus, it contains some colorless corpuscles, with many more which are red and give the blood its uniformly red color. See Corpuscle, Plasma.
  2. Relationship by descent from a common ancestor; consanguinity; kinship.
    To share the blood of Saxon royalty. Sir W. Scott.
    A friend of our own blood. Waller.
    Bouvier. Peters.
  3. Descent; lineage; especially, honorable birth; the highest royal lineage.
    Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam. Shak.
    I am a gentleman of blood and breeding. Shak.
  4. (Stock Breeding) Descent from parents of recognized breed; excellence or purity of breed. ✍ In stock breeding half blood is descent showing one half only of pure breed. Blue blood, full blood, or warm blood, is the same as blood.
  5. The fleshy nature of man.
    Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood. Shak.
  6. The shedding of blood; the taking of life, murder; manslaughter; destruction.
    So wills the fierce, avenging sprite, Till blood for blood atones. Hood.
  7. A bloodthirsty or murderous disposition. R.
    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries. Shak.
  8. Temper of mind; disposition; state of the passions; -- as if the blood were the seat of emotions.
    When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth. Shak.
    ✍ Often, in this sense, accompanied with bad, cold, warm, or other qualifying word. Thus, to commit an act in cold blood, is to do it deliberately, and without sudden passion; to do it in bad blood, is to do it in anger. Warm blood denotes a temper inflamed or irritated. To warm or heat the blood is to excite the passions. Qualified by up, excited feeling or passion is signified; as, my blood was up.
  9. A man of fire or spirit; a fiery spark; a gay, showy man; a rake.
    Seest thou not . . . how giddily 'a turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five and thirty? Shak.
    It was the morning costume of a dandy or blood. Thackeray.
  10. The juice of anything, especially if red.
    He washed . . . his clothes in the blood of grapes. Gen. xiix. 11.
    ✍ Blood is often used as an adjective, and as the first part of self-explaining compound words; as, blood-bespotted, blood-bought, blood-curdling, blood-dyed, blood-red, blood-spilling, blood-stained, blood-warm, blood-won.
Blood transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Blooded; present participle & verbal noun Blooding
Definitions
  1. To bleed. Obs. Cowper.
  2. To stain, smear or wet, with blood. Archaic
    Reach out their spears afar, And blood their points. Dryden.
  3. To give (hounds or soldiers) a first taste or sight of blood, as in hunting or war.
    It was most important too that his troops should be blooded. Macaulay.
  4. To heat the blood of; to exasperate. Obs.
    The auxiliary forces of the French and English were much blooded one against another. Bacon.

Webster 1913