hemorrhage
Americannoun
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hemorrhages
plural
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a profuse discharge of blood, as from a ruptured blood vessel; bleeding.
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the loss of assets, especially in large amounts.
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any widespread or uncontrolled loss or diffusion.
verb (used without object)
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to bleed profusely.
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to lose assets, especially in large amounts.
verb (used with object)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hemorrhage
1665–75; < Latin haemorrhagia < Greek haimorrhagía. See hemo-, -rrhagia
Explanation
Medically speaking, a hemorrhage is a rapid loss of blood. If you fall and hit your head really hard, the doctors will check to see there's no cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding in your brain. Hemorrhage is pronounced HEM-or-edge. Blame the Greeks for the funny spelling, because like many medical terms, this one comes from Greek roots. Besides the medical meaning, we use hemorrhage to mean the uncontrollable loss of other things. If sudden disaster is making you hemorrhage money, you'll have to cut back on fancy dinners and new shoes. Can I recommend frozen pizza?
Vocabulary lists containing hemorrhage
The Catcher in the Rye
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Maus I: My Father Bleeds History
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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.
See Examples For:
The improvement was most noticeable among patients with intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage, two types of bleeding strokes that can be particularly dangerous.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
It included four dense paragraphs citing evidence of the high risks of sepsis and hemorrhage if the medical team waited to empty her uterus.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
Misoprostol was initially approved by the FDA for stomach ulcers and is routinely prescribed off-label to induce labor, treat postpartum hemorrhage, and prepare the cervix for IUD insertion.
From Slate ● May 18, 2026
Kikuo Hatakeyama, 72, has served as the mayor of Hachirogata in north-east Japan since 2008, but fell ill in February and suffered a brain hemorrhage.
From BBC ● May 9, 2026
Her eighth child, Leopold, had inherited the gene and died of a brain hemorrhage at age thirty.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Certain neurological conditions, including strokes and brain hemorrhages, demand immediate medical attention.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 10, 2026
Monoclonal antibodies that are indicated for the early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, for example, have a risk of brain hemorrhages and bleeds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
Acute exposure by inhalation can cause respiratory issues such as difficulty breathing, congestion, edema and lung hemorrhages, while oral ingestion can cause adverse effects in the blood and thyroid.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
Fluffy white clouds and red hemorrhages, the work of cytomegalovirus, bloomed across patients’ retinas until they went blind.
From Slate ● Jan. 31, 2025
As Alexei grew older, and the hemorrhages more life threatening, Alexandra began to rely on a Russian monk of legendary unctuousness, Grigory Rasputin, who promised to heal the czar-to-be.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Saudis pumped over $5 billion into LIV before backing out after the enterprise hemorrhaged money since its 2022 inception.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
The early days were rife with failure and the operation hemorrhaged money.
From Barron's ● May 20, 2026
Like so many legacy media companies, it hemorrhaged money as it proved slow to adjust to the digital revolution.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2025
For almost 90 miles, he pushed the other plane as both jets hemorrhaged fuel, until they crossed the border with Laos.
From New York Times ● Dec. 21, 2023
They had both hemorrhaged badly, and blood plasma was in short supply our needs being low on the wartime priority list.
From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston
The law firm is hemorrhaging top lawyers, has no clear succession plan after its incoming chair declined to step into the role, and has engaged a bankruptcy lawyer for advice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
Furthermore, Apple’s focus on hardware would have made good business sense even if the frontier AI labs weren’t hemorrhaging cash, and even if those labs had found lots of profitable commercial applications for their models.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 2, 2026
“Sometimes I think I can feel the planet just hemorrhaging under all this greed. Like it’s tectonic,” she laments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Misoprostol has been available by prescription for decades as a treatment for stomach ulcers and to manage postpartum hemorrhaging.
From BBC ● May 1, 2026
The metaphorical potency of Alexei’s illness was also undeniable—symptomatic of an empire gone sick, dependent on bandages and prayers, hemorrhaging at its core.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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