To save this word, you'll need to log in.
Definition of bleed
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : to emit or lose blood
b : to sacrifice one's blood especially in battle
2 : to feel anguish, pain, or sympathy
a heart that bleeds at a friend's misfortune
3a : to escape by oozing or flowing (as from a wound)
b : to spread into or through something gradually : seep foreign policy bleeds into economic policy— J. B. Judis
4 : to give up some constituent (such as sap or dye) by exuding or diffusing it
5a : to pay out or give money
b : to have money extorted
6 : to be printed so as to run off one or more edges of the page after trimming
1 : to remove or draw blood from
2 : to get or extort money from especially over a prolonged period
3 : to draw sap from (a tree)
4a : to extract or let out some or all of a contained substance from
bleed a brake line
b : to extract or cause to escape from a container
c : to diminish gradually
—usually used with offa pilot bleeding off airspeed
d : to lose rapidly and uncontrollably
the company was bleeding money
e : sap cost overruns … bleed other programs— Alex Roland
5 : to cause (something, such as a printed illustration) to bleed
bleed white
: to drain of blood or resources
bleed
nounDefinition of bleed (Entry 2 of 2)
2 : the escape of blood from vessels : hemorrhage
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more
Keep scrolling for more
Test Your Vocabulary
Semantic Drift Quiz
- Which of the following was once a synonym for fun?

Can you spell these 10 commonly misspelled words?
TAKE THE QUIZ
Test Your Knowledge - and learn some interesting things along the way.
TAKE THE QUIZLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridgedWords at Play
Ask the Editors
Word Games
Share bleed
Time Traveler for bleed
The first known use of bleed was before the 12th century
See more words from the same century