bleed

USBLEED/ˈbliːd/

Noun pluralbleeds

20 meanings of bleed

1
verbintransitive
To lose blood from a cut or other injury.
Like water leaking out from a small crack.
His knee began to bleed after he fell on the gravel.
The cut on her finger kept bleeding for several minutes.
Note
2
verbtransitive
To take blood from a person or animal on purpose.
Like draining a little water out of a full tank on purpose.
Long ago, doctors would bleed sick patients to try to cure them.
The healer bled the feverish man with leeches.
Note
3
verbtransitive
To slowly lose something important, a little at a time.
Like a slow leak that empties a tank drop by drop.
The long fight can bleed a team of all its energy.
Months of high costs bled the small shop of its savings.
Similardrain, deplete, strip, sap
4
verbtransitive
To take a lot of money from someone, often unfairly.
Like squeezing a sponge until no water is left.
Those repair fees really bleed customers who have no other choice.
The crooked lawyer bled his clients for every penny.
Similarfleece, milk, drain, squeeze
5
verbintransitive
When ink or color spreads out and stains the area around it.
Like a drop of paint slowly spreading on a wet napkin.
Cheap dyes often bleed when the shirt is washed.
The red ink bled through to the next page.
Similarrun, spread, seep
6
verbintransitive
To keep losing money in a business.
Like a wallet that slowly empties even when you sit still.
The new store bled for months before it finally closed.
Startups can bleed for years before they make any profit.
Note
7
verbtransitive
To let air out of a pipe or system so liquid can flow well.
Like letting trapped air out of a straw so the drink flows.
You should bleed the radiator before winter to clear trapped air.
The mechanic bled the brakes to get rid of air bubbles.
Similarpurge, vent
8
nouncountable or uncountable
A time when someone bleeds, often inside the body, common in people with hemophilia.
Like a leak inside the body instead of on the skin.
A joint bleed left his knee swollen and painful for days.
Doctors treated the bleed quickly to prevent further damage.
Similarhemorrhage
9
verbfigurativelyintransitive
To show strong loyalty to a team or group, as if their color ran in your blood.
Like wearing your team's colors on the inside, not just your shirt.
Around here, fans bleed blue and white from childhood.
She has bled green for that club since she was six.
Note
10
verbintransitive
To come out or drip, the way blood comes out of a cut.
Sticky sap began to bleed from the cut in the bark.
Pink juice bled from the steak onto the plate.
Similarooze, seep, drip, trickle
Note

11
verbtransitive or intransitive
To slowly let out sap, gum, or juice, as a plant does when it is cut.
Like juice dripping out of an orange when you squeeze it.
The maple tree will bleed sticky sap if you cut its bark.
Pine trees often bleed a thick gum from cracks along their trunks.
Similarooze, exude, weep, leak
12
nouncountable or uncountable
Extra space printed past the edge of a page, then cut off when the page is trimmed.
Like leaving extra wrapping paper around a gift so you can trim it down neatly.
The designer added a quarter-inch bleed so the photo would reach the paper's edge.
Without enough bleed, a thin white line can show up along the edge.
Note
13
verbtransitive or intransitive
To reach all the way to the edge of a page, with no blank border left.
Like coloring a picture right up to the very edge of the paper.
The photo will bleed off the edge of the brochure.
They wanted the background color to bleed to all four sides of the poster.
Note
14
nouncountable or uncountable
Unwanted sound that a microphone picks up from something other than what you meant to record.
Like hearing your neighbor's music through the wall when you only wanted quiet.
There was too much bleed from the drums on the singer's track.
Loud headphones can cause bleed if the music leaks back into the microphone.
Similarspill, leakage
Note
15
nouncountable or uncountable
The act of letting trapped air out of a pipe or tube that is full of liquid.
Like squeezing the air out of a straw so only the drink comes through.
The mechanic did a brake bleed to get the air out of the lines.
A quick bleed of the radiator stopped the gurgling sound for good.
Similarpurge
16
noununcountable
When the feelings of a character you play carry over into your own real feelings or actions.
Like still feeling scared after watching a horror movie, even though it was only a film.
After the emotional scene, she felt a wave of bleed and stayed upset for hours.
The betrayal in the story caused so much bleed that he avoided his co-player afterward.
Note
17
verbtransitive
To draw off some high-pressure gas from a machine that makes it mainly for another job.
Like letting a little air out of a balloon to use it somewhere else.
Engineers bleed air from the engine to power other systems on the plane.
You can bleed some pressure off the tank through this small valve.
Similartap, draw, divert
Note
18
nouncountable or uncountable
A setup that draws hot, high-pressure air from a jet engine for jobs like warming the cabin and stopping ice.
Like a tap on a big water pipe that sends some water off to do another job.
The plane's bleed supplies warm air to keep ice off the wings.
A fault in the bleed left the cabin without enough pressure.
Note
19
verbtransitive
To wipe out the conditions a second sound rule needs, so that rule can no longer apply.
In this language, the rule that drops final vowels can bleed the rule that turns k into ch.
Our teacher asked us to find out which rule bleeds which.
Oppositefeed
Note
20
verbobsoletetransitive
To get blood on something, or to make it bloody.
Note

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of bleed apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Old English blēdan, meaning "to bleed," which comes from an older Germanic word for "blood."