Etymology
1. O.E.
blod, from P.Gmc.
*blodam (cf. O.Fris.
blod, O.N.
bloð, M.Du.
bloet, O.H.G.
bluot, Ger.
Blut, Goth.
bloþ), from PIE
*bhlo-to-, perhaps meaning "to swell, gush, spurt," or "that which bursts out" (cf. Goth.
bloþ "blood,"
bloma "flower"), from suffixed form of
*bhle-, extended form of
*bhel- "to thrive, bloom" (see bole). There seems to have been an avoidance in Gmc., perhaps from taboo, of other PIE words for "blood," such as
*esen- (cf. poetic Gk.
ear, O.Latin
aser, Skt.
asrk, Hittite
eshar); also
*krew-, which seems to have had a sense of "blood outside the body, gore from a wound" (cf. L.
cruour "blood from a wound," Gk.
kreas "meat"), which came to mean simply "blood" in Balto-Slavic and some other languages. Inheritance and relationship senses emerged by c.1250. As the seat of passions, it is recorded from c.1300. Slang meaning "hot spark, a man of fire" [Johnson] is from 1562.
Bloodthirsty is from 1535;
bloodshed is from 1500;
bloodshot is from 1607.
Bloodsucker is from 1387; in the figurative sense it is attested from 1668.
Blood-money is from 1535;
bloodlust is from 1848.
2. Etymology tree
3. Proto-West Germanic inh
4. Proto-West Germanic gem-pro>*blōþą>blood
5. Proto-West Germanic *blōd
6. Old English blōd
7. Middle English blood
8. English blood
9. From Middle English blood, from Old English blōd, from Proto-West Germanic *blōd, from Proto-Germanic *blōþą, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- ("to swell") + -ó- (thematic vowel) + -to (nominalizer), i.e. "that which bursts out".
10. Cognate with Scots blude, bluid (“blood”), North Frisian blud, blödj, Blör (“blood”), Saterland Frisian Bloud (“blood”), West Frisian bloed (“blood”), Cimbrian pluat, pluut (“blood”), Dutch bloed (“blood”), German Blut (“blood”), German Low German Blood, Bloot (“blood”), Luxembourgish Blutt (“blood”), Vilamovian błüt (“blood”), Yiddish בלוט (blut, “blood”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish blod (“blood”), Faroese and Icelandic blóð (“blood”), Crimean Gothic plut (“blood”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐍉𐌸 (blōþ, “blood”).
Verbs referencing "blood"
Sranan
brudu.