sweat blood

Idioms  

1. Also, sweat one's guts out . Work diligently or strenuously, as in The men were sweating blood to finish the roof before the storm hit . The phrase using guts was first used about 1890, and that with blood shortly thereafter.

2. Suffer mental anguish, worry intensely, as in Waiting for the test results, I was sweating blood . This usage was first recorded in a work by D.H. Lawrence in 1924. Both usages are colloquial, and allude to the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44): “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

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Example Sentences

Ebola spreads through touching sweat, blood and other bodily fluids of infected people.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026

And it was only made possible thanks to the sweat, blood and tears of several generations of scientists and engineers.

From Scientific American • Aug. 6, 2021

“We went to Mexico,” she recalled in an interview cited by Reuters news agency, “determined to sweat blood to defeat the invaders’ representatives.”

From Washington Post • Aug. 31, 2016

One of those dorm rooms was haunted — or so the veterans would say — and the walls in that room were rumored to sweat blood.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 29, 2016

My sheets and shift were soaked through with sweat, blood, and the foul-smelling black substance that marked a victim of yellow fever.

From "Fever 1793" by Laurie Halse Anderson