bleed out

plural bleed outs · alternative bleed-out

1. informalmedicineAn instance of exsanguination or of major blood loss.

   There are shootings, stabbings, car wrecks, falls and other accidents that can create a fatal bleed out situation.

   2023 December 3, David Martin Davies, “Stopping the bleed out to save lives”, in Texas Public Radio, archived from the original on 21 Feb 2024

2. figurativelyAn instance of any system or item that loses its necessary components, such as a machine and its fuel or a company and its money.

present singular third person bleeds out · participle present bleeding out · participle past bled out · past bled out · alternative bleed-out

1. intransitiveTo die due to excess blood loss; to bleed to death.

   But we never got to take the shot I'd been trained to take, that beautiful single shot that takes out a man's head, or the gutshot—Chris Kyle's favorite—that allows him to bleed out and die a little slower, maybe think about all the ways he might have lived a different and better life.

   2013, Anthony Swofford, Death of an American Sniper, →ISBN

2. transitiveTo kill by causing such bloodloss.
3. figurativelyintransitiveTo leak out; to spread.

   Most slang begins in small communities, but some words bleed out into wider society over time.

   Synonyms: exsanguinate