Blood is thicker than water
Our loyalty to our family — that is, to our blood relations — is strong no matter how we may feel about them.
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Blood is thicker than water
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blood is thicker than water
blood is thicker than waterFamily ties are closer than other relationships. For example, Nancy will drop everything to help her sister; blood is thicker than water. Alluding to the fact that water evaporates without leaving a mark whereas blood leaves a stain, this proverb was first recorded about 1412.
Blood is thicker than water
Cultural
blood is thicker than water
Idioms
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.
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Since Uncle Ronnie was my godfather and not my biological father, my choice was clear: Blood is thicker than water.
From New York Times ● Feb. 11, 2022
Describing relations between the U.S. and Europe recently, Japan's Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira somewhat enviously mused: "Blood is thicker than water."
From Time Magazine Archive
Blood is thicker than water, and I have a softness for her; only I won't put up with her nonsense.
From Cashel Byron's Profession by Bernard Shaw
"Helping him in any case is against the law—" "Blood is thicker than water," said Hennie Penny earnestly.
From Pearl of Pearl Island by John Oxenham
At the Guildhall subsequently, referring to the two nations, he used, and not for the first time, the phrase "Blood is thicker than water."
From William of Germany by Stanley Shaw
My sister believes in the sanctity of family, that blood is thicker than water.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2020
"But blood is thicker than water, and later on when I visited them I found that they welcomed me. My two kids now stay with my mother."
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2019
The strategy had resonance, since blood provides so many of our metaphors about family: blood ties, blood relations, blood is thicker than water, and so on.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 24, 2019
But in the end, blood is thicker than water.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 9, 2016
You said also that blood is thicker than water.
From Back to Methuselah by Bernard Shaw
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.
