bloodless

comparative more bloodless · superlative most bloodless · alternative obsolete bloodlesse · alternative obsolete bloudless

1. Lacking blood; ashen, anaemic.

   The face was white and thoroughly bloodless with some kind of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume.

   1956, James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Penguin, published 2001, Part One, Chapter 2

   2 more examples

   My bloodleſſe bodie waxeth chill and colde, And with my blood my life ſlides through my wound, My ſoule begins to take her flight to hell, And ſummones all my ſences to depart: […]

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene vii

   Thou dost not slumber: see, thy two sons’ heads, Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here: Thy other banish’d son, with this dear sight Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I, Even like a stony image, cold and numb.

   c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

2. Taking place without loss of blood.

   a bloodless conquest; a bloodless coup d'état; a bloodless revolution; a bloodless victory

   1 more example

   Now and then a gaudy peacock would run from his shelter in the lauhala trees, but no wild boars came out, so we returned from our raid bloodless and spoilless.

   1892, Rev. Herbert Henry Gowen, The Paradise of the Pacific, page 129

3. figurativelyLacking emotion, passion or vivacity.

   Many of them are leaving us — the words. Gone into hiding […] Now they lurk, uncaged, behind other words, behind trending, brittle, bloodless little wokeisms […]

   2024, Bruce Wagner, The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers

   2 more examples

   Those Philharmonic subscribers who considered Guest Conductor Igor Stravinsky too bloodless and ascetic […] last week found his successor, Georges Enesco, more to their taste.

   1937 February 8, “No. 1 Rumanian”, in Time

   There is plenty of commentary, even among users of other platforms, about how Threads is bloodless (and owned by Mark Zuckerberg), Mastodon is inscrutable, and Bluesky is humorless.

   2025 May 23, Charlie Warzel, “What Are People Still Doing on X?”, in The Atlantic