blooding

Pluralbloodings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of blood.

   The master of the hunt was blooding the new hounds at first light.

   Blooding the soldiers in a minor skirmish prepared them for the campaign.

   Note

   One -ing form does two jobs. It is a participle in "the master was blooding the hounds" and a gerund in "blooding the soldiers prepared them." It carries every sense of the verb, including the initiation sense: a first taste of combat or the chase, traditionally marked by smearing the novice with the first kill's blood. Keep it apart from the old medical noun, which has a separate origin in Middle English blodyng.

2. 2
   nounhistoricalcountable

   An instance of bleeding, especially the historical medical practice of drawing blood from a patient to treat disease.

   The physician prescribed a blooding to rid the patient of excess humors.

   Several bloodings over the week left the feverish man pale and faint.

   Similarbloodletting, bleeding, phlebotomy

   Note

   A word from the physician's old toolkit, inherited from Middle English blodyng. It is countable, like a dose. The Edinburgh Review in 1832 describes "seven or eight annual bloodings, and as many purgations" as a common regimen for keeping a person healthy, not only for curing illness. Use it when writing about the medicine of the past, where it sits naturally beside purging and prescribed.

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