bleeder

English

Etymology

From bleed +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈblidɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbliːdə/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bleed‧er

Noun

bleeder (plural bleeders)

1. A person who is easily made to bleed, or who bleeds in unusually large amounts, particularly a hemophiliac.
   • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:

     And then finally to pass on to the rising generation there were Sean's two little girls Rose and Cerise, aged five and four respectively, and these innocent little girlies were bleeders like their papa and mama […]

2. (surgery) A blood vessel that requires cauterization etc. to stop it from bleeding during surgery.
   • 2013, Theresa Welch Fossum, Small Animal Surgery Textbook:

     Ligate or cauterize small subcutaneous bleeders and identify the linea alba.

3. Anything that saps a resource produced by something else.
4. A valve designed to release a small amount of excess pressure from a system.
5. (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, slang, derogatory) A troublesome fellow or thing; a blighter.
   • 1938, Louis MacNeice, Bagpipe Music:

     His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, / Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 36, in Gormenghast, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode:

     ‘Well, what did the old bleeder say?’ said Opus Fluke.

6. (baseball) Synonym of scratch hit
7. (LGBTQ) A person who menstruates (used in the context of transgender inclusivity).
   • 2014, Michael O'Loughlin, Marilyn Charles, Fragments of Trauma and the Social Production of Suffering, page 154:

     Vostral (2008) sees menstrual technology as focused on allowing women to “pass” as non-bleeders, speaking to the sense of the female body as dysfunctional, problematic, and “out of control.”

Derived terms

• bench bleeder
• nosebleeder
• squabbling bleeder

 

Translations

person who is easily made to bleed

Czech: hemofilik m German: Bluter (de) m Polish: hemofilik (pl) m

blood vessel that requires cauterization to prevent bleeding during surgery

something that saps a resource produced by something else

French: sangsue (fr)

valve designed to release a small amount of excess pressure from a system

troublesome fellow; blighter

Swedish: bråkstake (sv) c, bråkmakare (sv) c

Anagrams

• bredele, rebleed