bloodbath

plural bloodbaths · alternative blood bath

1. Indiscriminate killing or slaughter; a massacre.

   There lay the steed; here lay the man; Gude friends that day did twin: They leuch na a' to the feast that cam Whan the het bluid-bath was done.

   1814, Robert Jamieson, “Stark Tiderich and Olger Danske”, in Illustrations of northern antiquities […] , Edinburgh: James Ballantyne and Co., translation of Kæmpe Viser, Popular Heroic and Romantic Ballads, translated from the Northern Languages, with Notes and Illustrations, page 272

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   He made a "Stockholm BLUTBAD" still famed in History (kind of open, ordered or permitted, Massacre of eighty or a hundred of his chief enemies there), "Bloodbath," so they name it; in Stockholm, where indeed he was lawful King, and not without unlawful enemies, had a bloodbath been the way to deal with them.

   1862, Thomas Carlyle, chapter IX, in History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

   In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.

   2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club

2. hobbiesAn aggressive or very violent contest or confrontation.

   Although the Hampden Park blood bath of '94 caused Yale and Harvard to break off football relations for the next two years, they kept close watch on each other.

   1951, Tim Cohane, “Be Each, Pray God, a Gentlemen!”, in The Yale Football Story, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 93

3. figurativelyAn upset (as of a game with unexpected results, or a national presidential convention) or heavy defeat.

   Robert Halfon, a senior Tory backbencher, warned that a general election now would be a “bloodbath” for his party.

   2022 October 16, Pippa Crerar, “Liz Truss fights for survival as even allies say she could have only days left”, in The Guardian

4. figurativelybusinessA large financial loss or massive layoff brought about by negative economic conditions.

   In an interview after the victory, Daley sought to assure Blacks that there would be no personnel bloodbath at City Hall.

   1989, “Richard Daley Wins Chicago Mayoral Race; Blacks Fail to Unite Behind Tim Evans”, in Robert E. Johnson, editor, Jet Magazine, volume 76, Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, National Report, page 9

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   The point is, Amodei is a salesman, and it’s in his interest to make his product appear inevitable and so powerful it’s scary. Axios framed Amodei’s economic prediction as a “white-collar bloodbath.”

   2025 May 30, Allison Morrow, “The ‘white-collar bloodbath’ is all part of the AI hype machine”, in CNN

5. literallyA bath taken in warm blood used as a restorative or medical treatment.

   On Blood-Baths: An Historical Notice. By Dr. Hecker. According to a dark tradition which is incidentally mentioned by Pliny, the ancient kings of Egypt used to bathe in human blood when they were seized with leprosy.

   1834, “On Blood-Baths: An Historical Notice.”, in The London Medical Gazette; Being a Weekly Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume 13, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, page 813