Blood-letting
the act or practice of letting blood by opening a vein; phlebotomy.
bloodshed or slaughter.
bloodbath.
Informal. severe cutbacks or reduction in personnel, appropriations, etc.:
The company went through a period of bloodletting in the 1970s.
Contemporary Examples
America Doesn’t Need a Big Army Any More Bill Sweetman March 9, 2014
Should Animal Sacrifice End? David Frum October 25, 2012
Historical Examples
Fathers of Biology Charles McRae
Robert Orange John Oliver Hobbes
The Mystery and Romance of Alchemy and Pharmacy Charles John Samuel Thompson
English Villages P. H. Ditchfield
Victory Lester del Rey
Blood and Iron John Hubert Greusel
In Search of Mademoiselle George Gibbs
Captain Blood Rafael Sabatini
noun
the therapeutic removal of blood, as in relieving congestive heart failure See also phlebotomy
bloodshed, esp in a blood feud
n.
blood’let’ter n.
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having blood of a specified kind (used in combination): warm-blooded animals. (of horses, cattle, etc.) derived from ancestors of good blood; having a good pedigree. the fluid that circulates in the principal vascular system of human beings and other vertebrates, in humans consisting of plasma in which the red blood cells, white blood cells, and […]
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- Bloodguiltiness
guilty of murder or bloodshed. Historical Examples A Study of Shakespeare Algernon Charles Swinburne Select Temperance Tracts American Tract Society Sir Walter Ralegh William Stebbing The Origin of Paul’s Religion J. Gresham Machen