bloodline
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of bloodline
Explanation
Your bloodline is your heritage or ancestry. In other words, your bloodline includes your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. You might talk about the bloodline of a show dog, bragging about the pedigree of your funny-looking terrier. Sometime a horse's bloodline is also a selling point, particularly when someone is betting on a race horse. You have a bloodline too, although the word more often describes the heritage of a famous or royal family. The Old English root word blod, means "blood." By the 13th century, blood also meant "family" or "heritage."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The union would potentially create a new caliphal bloodline relocated in India.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026
The Kim family has ruled North Korea with an iron grip for decades, and a cult of personality surrounding their "Paektu bloodline" dominates daily life in the isolated country.
From Barron's • Feb. 26, 2026
That trust showed a $500,000 transfer from my father, explicitly described as a gift, made at the same time my father was supposedly creating his bloodline trust.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 2, 2026
Her grandfather Charlie, an actor who embraced visual effects a century ago with “The Gold Rush,” would have been impressed by how his bloodline has kept pace with cinema’s evolution.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 16, 2025
I soak in the Grand Banquet Hall: candelabras and centerpieces dripping with white and gold, animated ceiling frescoes of the royal family's bloodline, roses opening and closing to release their scents.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
