bleed
Americanverb (used without object)
-
bleeds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bled,
past participle, past
-
bleeding
present participle
-
to lose blood from the vascular system, either internally into the body or externally through a natural orifice or break in the skin.
to bleed from the mouth.
-
(of injured tissue, excrescences, etc.) to exude blood.
a wart that is bleeding.
-
(of a plant) to exude sap, resin, etc., from a wound.
-
(of dye or paint) to run or become diffused.
All the colors bled when the dress was washed.
-
(of a liquid) to ooze or flow out.
-
to feel pity, sorrow, or anguish.
My heart bleeds for you. A nation bleeds for its dead heroes.
-
to suffer wounds or death, as in battle.
The soldiers bled for the cause.
-
(of a broadcast signal) to interfere with another signal.
CB transmissions bleeding over into walkie-talkies.
-
Printing. (of printed matter) to run off the edges of a page, either by design or through mutilation caused by too close trimming.
-
Slang. to pay out money, as when overcharged or threatened with extortion.
-
Metallurgy. (of a cooling ingot or casting) to have molten metal force its way through the solidified exterior because of internal gas pressure.
verb (used with object)
-
bleeds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bled,
past participle, past
-
bleeding
present participle
-
to cause to lose blood, especially surgically.
Doctors no longer bleed their patients to reduce fever.
-
to lose or emit (blood or sap).
-
to drain or draw sap, water, electricity, etc., from (something).
to bleed a pipeline of excess air.
-
to remove trapped air from (as an automotive brake system) by opening a bleeder valve.
-
to obtain an excessive amount from; extort money from.
-
Printing.
-
to permit (printed illustrations or ornamentation) to run off the page or sheet.
-
to trim the margin of (a book or sheet) so closely as to mutilate the text or illustration.
-
noun
-
Printing.
-
a sheet or page margin trimmed so as to mutilate the text or illustration.
-
a part thus trimmed off.
-
-
Medicine/Medical. an instance of bleeding; hemorrhage.
an intracranial bleed.
adjective
verb phrase
idioms
verb
-
(intr) to lose or emit blood
-
(tr) to remove or draw blood from (a person or animal)
-
(intr) to be injured or die, as for a cause or one's country
-
(of plants) to exude (sap or resin), esp from a cut
-
informal (tr) to obtain relatively large amounts of money, goods, etc, esp by extortion
-
(tr) to draw liquid or gas from (a container or enclosed system)
to bleed the hydraulic brakes
-
(intr) (of dye or paint) to run or become mixed, as when wet
-
to print or be printed so that text, illustrations, etc, run off the trimmed page
-
(tr) to trim (the edges of a printed sheet) so closely as to cut off some of the printed matter
-
(intr) civil engineering building trades (of a mixture) to exude (a liquid) during compaction, such as water from cement
-
to extort gradually all the resources of a person or thing
-
used to express sympathetic grief, but often used ironically
noun
-
printing
-
an illustration or sheet trimmed so that some matter is bled
-
( as modifier )
a bleed page
-
-
printing the trimmings of a sheet that has been bled
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
bleedsimple
-
bleedssimple
-
have bledperfect
-
has bledperfect
-
am bleedingprogressive
-
are bleedingprogressive
-
is bleedingprogressive
-
have been bleedingperfect progressive
-
has been bleedingperfect progressive
Past
-
bledsimple
-
had bledperfect
-
was bleedingprogressive
-
were bleedingprogressive
-
had been bleedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bleed
before 1000; Middle English bleden, Old English blēdan, derivative of blōd blood
Explanation
When you bleed, blood runs or oozes out of your body. Cutting your finger when you're chopping vegetables can make you bleed. Some kind of illness or injury, particularly one that cuts or scrapes your skin, can make you bleed. In long ago days of medical care, doctors would deliberately bleed patients to treat specific conditions, though today we mainly bleed due to accidents. You can also use bleed to mean "drain of money or resources," as when a greedy relative bleeds his wealthy grandmother, using her fortune to buy himself fancy cars.
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:
She relishes the tedious sausage-making of statecraft, the kind of stuff that makes you and me bleed from our ears.
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
His face stays neutral yet you can see his own confidence bleed out across the screen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026
“The commercial importance of diesel makes this rise particularly alarming, with more obvious potential for high diesel prices to bleed into broader inflation than for crude,” analysts at Wolfe Research said in a note Friday.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 11, 2026
He has also survived health scares, notably a fall in his bathroom in 2024 that caused a brain bleed.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
“No, Eliza, don’t bleed them. It will kill them for sure. It won’t work.”
From "Fever 1793" by Laurie Halse Anderson
“Where, I think right now he feels really confident, swinging the bat well, and the hope is that this one bleeds into October as well.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
But these sights are drained of their warmth, depicted with a cold, eerie hum that, when it bleeds into the roar of suffering miles away, becomes a deafening cacophony.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2026
As it bleeds cash, Meta will need to borrow more money to keep up spending.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
Doctors managed to stem the bleeding but failed to investigate its cause and she suffered multiple bleeds until she gave birth.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
The model at the foot of the bed bleeds away and is a long time restoring itself.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
It was common to say that his hell-for-leather personal life bled into his film persona.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
Digital disaffection has bled into our lives like dye onto white linen, creeping through every inch of the fabric until it’s covered in amorphous patterns of color; some beautiful, some painfully ugly.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
The unit has bled tens of billions of dollars, and Meta has increasingly shifted its hardware focus toward AI-powered smart glasses, a promising consumer release outside social media.
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Fears over the scale of artificial-intelligence spending and competition from China prompted a fresh tumble in U.S. chip stocks Monday, which bled into Asian markets Tuesday.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
“I’m starving! All I’ve had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!”
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
It might need backer Nvidia to stem the bleeding.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
“The necropsy did not find uncontrolled bleeding typically associated with anticoagulant rodenticide; therefore, brodifacoum was not identified as the primary cause of illness or death,” Fish and Wildlife said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
Possible warning signs include lower back pain, abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits, weight loss, and rectal bleeding.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
The mistakes risked bleeding into budgets for years to come.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
I was still dizzy from bleeding and tired from all that previous running.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
