bleed

bleed — verb

1. to have blood flowing out of your body, usually because of a cut, a wound, or so

1.verbintransitiveB1
Definition

to have blood flowing out of your body, usually because of a cut, a wound, or some kind of injury.

Example

Maya cut her finger on a kitchen knife and started to bleed.

intransitive: subject + bleed

The football player was bleeding heavily from a deep cut above his eye.

bleed + from + body part

Common collocations
  • bleed heavily
  • bleed badly
  • bleed to death
  • stop bleeding
  • bleed from the nose
Synonyms
  • hemorrhage

    formal/medical; suggests heavy or dangerous blood loss

  • ooze

    blood comes out slowly, in small amounts

Grammar Patterns

bleed from + body part

Usage Note

Subject is usually a person, an animal, or a body part (nose, finger, gum). Often paired with adverbs of degree such as 'heavily', 'badly', or 'a little'.

Common Mistakes

I bleed my finger.
My finger is bleeding.
in this sense the verb is intransitive; you don't 'bleed' an object.
He bleeded for an hour.
He bled for an hour.
the past tense of 'bleed' is irregular: bleed / bled / bled.

2. in earlier centuries, to deliberately drain blood from a sick person, in the mis

2.verbtransitive
Definition

in earlier centuries, to deliberately drain blood from a sick person, in the mistaken belief that this would help them recover from illness.

Example

Doctors in the 1700s often bled fever patients with leeches or sharp blades.

historical use: bleed + patient

George Washington was bled several times by his physicians on the day he died.

passive: be bled by [doctor]

Common collocations
  • bleed a patient
  • bleed somebody with leeches
Synonyms
  • leech

    specifically using leeches to suck out blood

Grammar Patterns

bleed + somebody

Usage Note

Almost always used in historical contexts; modern medicine no longer treats illness this way. Frequently appears in passive voice ('was bled by…').

3. to let trapped air or extra liquid escape from inside a pipe, radiator, or brake

3.verbtransitive
Definition

to let trapped air or extra liquid escape from inside a pipe, radiator, or brake system, so that the equipment can work properly again.

Example

Marcus had to bleed the radiators before the cold weather arrived.

bleed + closed system (radiator)

The mechanic showed Sarah how to bleed the brakes on her old motorcycle.

bleed + the brakes

Common collocations
  • bleed the radiator
  • bleed the brakes
  • bleed the pipes
  • bleed the system
Synonyms
  • drain

    more general; doesn't have to be about trapped air

  • vent

    specifically for releasing trapped gas or pressure

Grammar Patterns

bleed + machine/pipe

Usage Note

Object is almost always a closed system that holds liquid or gas: radiator, brake, boiler, pipe, fuel line. Distinguish from sense 1, where the subject is a person and the verb is intransitive.

Common Mistakes

The radiator bleeds badly.
I need to bleed the radiator.
in this sense, a person bleeds the equipment; the equipment is the object, not the subject.

4. if a colour, dye, ink, or paint bleeds, it slowly leaks past a sharp edge or bou

4.verbintransitive
Definition

if a colour, dye, ink, or paint bleeds, it slowly leaks past a sharp edge or boundary and stains a nearby area that should have stayed clean.

Example

The red ink bled through the thin paper and stained the page below.

bleed through + surface

Lina's new black socks bled in the wash and turned all her shirts grey.

bleed in + the wash

Common collocations
  • bleed through
  • bleed into
  • colours bleed
  • the dye bled
Synonyms
  • run

    very common in laundry contexts: 'the colour ran'

  • seep

    stresses slow movement of liquid; can be used for non-colour liquids too

Grammar Patterns

bleed into + area

Usage Note

Subject must be a colour, dye, ink, or paint — not a solid object. Common prepositions: 'into', 'through', 'onto'.

5. to keep taking large amounts of money from somebody over a long stretch of time,

5.verbtransitive
Definition

to keep taking large amounts of money from somebody over a long stretch of time, usually in a way that feels unfair or harmful.

Example

The landlord has been bleeding the family for rent he is not really owed.

informal: bleed + somebody + for + money

These hidden subscription fees are bleeding millions of customers every month.

subject is often a fee or a company

Common collocations
  • bleed somebody dry
  • bleed somebody for money
  • bleed customers
Synonyms
  • fleece

    informal; emphasises clever cheating in a single transaction

  • milk

    informal; stresses repeatedly squeezing a steady source for benefit

Grammar Patterns

bleed somebody (for something)

Usage Note

Informal and clearly negative in tone — implies unfairness or exploitation. Usually takes a human or company as object, plus an optional 'for' phrase naming what is taken.

Idioms

bleed somebody dry

idiom

to take so much money or so many resources from a person or business that almost nothing of value is left for them.

The two long lawsuits bled the small bakery dry within a single year.

Marcus accused his ex-business partner of trying to bleed him dry.

my heart bleeds (for somebody)

idiom

used to say you feel deep sympathy for someone — or, very often, used sarcastically to say you actually do not feel sorry for them at all.

My heart bleeds for the families who lost their homes in the flood.

Oh, your phone battery died? My heart bleeds for you, Jake.

bleed like a stuck pig

idiom

to lose blood very heavily and quickly from a wound, often in a messy, alarming way.

Carlos cut his hand on the glass and bled like a stuck pig all over the floor.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: verb/1

All four words describe liquid escaping from where it should stay, but they differ in scale, register, and what is leaking. 'Bleed' is the everyday word for blood leaving the body through a cut or wound — neutral in register and used by adults, children, and doctors alike. 'Hemorrhage' is formal and medical, reserved for heavy or dangerous internal or external blood loss; you would hear it from a paramedic, not from a child with a scraped knee. 'Ooze' suggests slow, thick movement and a small amount, often of blood, pus, or sap; a wound oozes hours after it stopped actively bleeding. 'Seep' applies to any liquid moving slowly through a barrier — water seeping through a crack, oil seeping into soil — and only rarely to blood. So: a finger bleeds, a serious patient hemorrhages, an old cut oozes, and water seeps through the wall.

bleed ↗hemorrhageooze ↗seep

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

Prepositions

Etymology

Proto-GermanicOld EnglishMiddle EnglishModern English

The verb 'bleed' comes from Old English 'bledan', meaning 'to lose blood', which itself was built on the older Germanic noun for blood ('blōd'). The same root gave rise to similar words in Dutch ('bloeden') and German ('bluten'). The literal sense — losing blood from a wound — has been in continuous use for over a thousand years. The transitive sense of draining liquid or air from a system (sense 3) appeared in the 1700s as machinery became more common, and the figurative sense of extracting money from someone (sense 5) developed in the 1500s and remains informal today.