bleed
Americanverb (used without object)
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bleeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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bled,
past participle, past
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bleeding
present participle
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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.
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(of injured tissue, excrescences, etc.) to exude blood.
a wart that is bleeding.
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(of a plant) to exude sap, resin, etc., from a wound.
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(of dye or paint) to run or become diffused.
All the colors bled when the dress was washed.
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(of a liquid) to ooze or flow out.
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to feel pity, sorrow, or anguish.
My heart bleeds for you. A nation bleeds for its dead heroes.
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to suffer wounds or death, as in battle.
The soldiers bled for the cause.
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(of a broadcast signal) to interfere with another signal.
CB transmissions bleeding over into walkie-talkies.
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Printing. (of printed matter) to run off the edges of a page, either by design or through mutilation caused by too close trimming.
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Slang. to pay out money, as when overcharged or threatened with extortion.
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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)
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bleeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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bled,
past participle, past
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bleeding
present participle
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to cause to lose blood, especially surgically.
Doctors no longer bleed their patients to reduce fever.
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to lose or emit (blood or sap).
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to drain or draw sap, water, electricity, etc., from (something).
to bleed a pipeline of excess air.
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to remove trapped air from (as an automotive brake system) by opening a bleeder valve.
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to obtain an excessive amount from; extort money from.
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Printing.
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to permit (printed illustrations or ornamentation) to run off the page or sheet.
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to trim the margin of (a book or sheet) so closely as to mutilate the text or illustration.
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noun
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Printing.
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a sheet or page margin trimmed so as to mutilate the text or illustration.
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a part thus trimmed off.
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Medicine/Medical. an instance of bleeding; hemorrhage.
an intracranial bleed.
adjective
verb phrase
idioms
verb
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(intr) to lose or emit blood
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(tr) to remove or draw blood from (a person or animal)
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(intr) to be injured or die, as for a cause or one's country
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(of plants) to exude (sap or resin), esp from a cut
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informal (tr) to obtain relatively large amounts of money, goods, etc, esp by extortion
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(tr) to draw liquid or gas from (a container or enclosed system)
to bleed the hydraulic brakes
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(intr) (of dye or paint) to run or become mixed, as when wet
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to print or be printed so that text, illustrations, etc, run off the trimmed page
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(tr) to trim (the edges of a printed sheet) so closely as to cut off some of the printed matter
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(intr) civil engineering building trades (of a mixture) to exude (a liquid) during compaction, such as water from cement
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to extort gradually all the resources of a person or thing
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used to express sympathetic grief, but often used ironically
noun
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printing
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an illustration or sheet trimmed so that some matter is bled
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( as modifier )
a bleed page
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printing the trimmings of a sheet that has been bled
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bleedsimple
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bleedssimple
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have bledperfect
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has bledperfect
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am bleedingprogressive
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are bleedingprogressive
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is bleedingprogressive
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have been bleedingperfect progressive
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has been bleedingperfect progressive
Past
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bledsimple
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had bledperfect
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was bleedingprogressive
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were bleedingprogressive
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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:
“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
“The current optimism could bleed out just as quickly as it appeared,” Tikhomirov said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 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
"I got what I wanted and it doesn't sit right," she observes, describing parties full of "big shots and barbies" whose empty talk makes her "ears bleed".
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
“He probably had a hemorrhage, a bleed in his brain you couldn’t see,” Gideon said.
From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Matthew Robert Cooper’s unnerving ambient score bleeds into the relentless dink-dink-dink of the Jeep’s strobing hazard lights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 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
"I take a paracetamol whenever fever becomes high," said Kanchan, a rare worker wearing rubber boots -- to protect against prolonged exposure to brine, that can crack skin so deep it bleeds.
From Barron's ● May 10, 2026
The set begins with the brief instrumental “The Garden Prelude,” which bleeds into “I Could Get Used to This.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
Five years feels like a lifetime when one day bleeds into the next, and your world doesn’t stretch any farther than the gray electric fence surrounding two miles of shoddy buildings and mud.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
Now without a slipstream, he was 0.4secs down at the first sector and bled time through the lap.
From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026
That has bled into Asia, with 10-year Japanese government bond yields touching a 30-year high on Monday.
From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026
He spun so much that I had to put a bootie on his back right foot because Cosmo wore down his paw pad until it bled.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 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
Some of the tension bled out of Denna as she laughed.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
With over 20 years of DJing under his belt, the Grammy-nominated artist said even though it’s rare for him to see a bleeding tour budget sheet, live shows are almost always worth the splurge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
One might reduce bleeding, for example, while another could interfere with enzyme activity.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 8, 2026
Yet the state has been bleeding entertainment production jobs since 2022.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
The company, according to US media reports, lost almost $42 billion in 2025, and will likely keep bleeding cash for years.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 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
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.
