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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
blood-letting

also bloodletting, early 13c., blod letunge, from blood (n.) + let (v.). Hyphenated from 17c., one word from mid-19c. Old English had blodlæte "blood-letting."

Usage examples of "blood-letting".

The blood-letting did me good, as it made me sleep, and relieved me of the spasms with which I was sometimes troubled.

Depletion of the blood by drastic and poisonous medicines, such as antimony and mercurials, hemorrhages and blood-letting, syphilis, excessive mental or physical labor, as well as a too early use and abuse of the sexual organs, all tend to waste the blood, reduce the tone of the system, and develop scrofula.

A fourth blood-letting exhausted my strength, and left me in a state of coma which lasted for twenty-four hours.

Depletion of the blood by drastic and poisonous medicines, such as antimony and mercurials, hemorrhages and blood-letting, syphilis, excessive mental or physical labor, as well as a too early use and abuse of the sexual organs, all tend to waste the blood, reduce the tone of the system, and develop scrofula.

I witnessed some: the brief vicious scuffles that by tradition end at first blood-letting.

Tom Hynes the merry Bachelor, tho' bobbing Corklike as ever, beginning to feel remorse, no longer alludes to his recent blood-letting Activities.

Unable to mellow her nature, and so pass unseen amongst the Cuckoos, her history became a round of blood-lettings, pursuits and further bloodlettings.

When in the tropics he treated a number of sailors by blood-letting, he observed that the venous blood was much nearer in colour to the paler arterial blood than was usual at home.