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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100 SAT Words Beginning with "H"
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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:
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
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
In March 2024, 16-year-old Shaylee Mejia died after she suffered a brain hemorrhage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2026
The researchers also found strong evidence that daily aspirin increases the risk of serious extracranial hemorrhage and likely raises the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 4, 2026
He said there was so much dirt blown into the wound that there had not been much hemorrhage.
From "A Farewell To Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
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
Fluffy white clouds and red hemorrhages, the work of cytomegalovirus, bloomed across patients’ retinas until they went blind.
From Slate ● Jan. 31, 2025
And then, on one random Wednesday, my left eye hemorrhages and fills with blood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2024
She helps singers dealing with polyps, nodules, hemorrhages, cysts, acid reflux, vocal fold swelling.
From New York Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
Only hemorrhages and fires were permissible reasons for a nurse to run.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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
However, while the city remains internationally synonymous with movie magic, it has hemorrhaged production jobs to other states and countries that offer generous tax incentives, cheaper labor and more filming-friendly bureaucracies.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2025
The company has secured prime rights for major leagues and competitions across Europe and beyond, though it has hemorrhaged considerable amounts of cash along the way.
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2024
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
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
The next morning, while the former chef was still in Palm Springs, the filing states that she awoke experiencing severe hemorrhaging and drove herself to the emergency room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 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
Clearing the uterus is standard care to stop hemorrhaging; misoprostol would only make the bleeding worse, they said.
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 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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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
