Bloody

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bloody" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Look up bloody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Bloody, as an adjective or adverb, is an expletive attributive commonly used in British English, Irish English, and Australian English; it is also present in Canadian English, Indian English, Malaysian/Singaporean English, Hawaiian English, South African English, and a number of other Commonwealth of nations. It has been used as an intensive since at least the 1670s.^[1] Considered respectable until about 1750, it was heavily tabooed during c. 1750–1920, considered equivalent to heavily obscene or profane speech.^{[citation needed]} Public use continued to be seen as controversial until the 1960s, but the word has since become a comparatively mild expletive or intensifier.^{[citation needed]}

In American English, the word is used almost exclusively in its literal sense to describe something that is covered in blood; when used as an intensifier, it is seen by American audiences as a stereotypical marker of a British- or Irish-English speaker, without any significant obscene or profane connotations. Canadian English usage is similar to American English, but use as an expletive adverb may be considered slightly vulgar depending on the circumstances.