1675 N. Grew Compar. Anat. Trunks ii. i. 45 The Trunk or Branch of any Plant being cut, it always bleeds at both ends.

a1711 T. Ken Wks. (1721) IV. 526 The Trees..When in their Stems a wound is made, In od'rous Balsam bleed away.

1796 C. Marshall Introd. Knowl. & Pract. Gardening xii. 206 Cutting large branches or shoots off in summer, makes them bleed too much.

1874 2nd Rep. Vermont State Board Agric. 1873–4 289 If pruned later the trees will often ‘bleed’, though it is stated that a perfectly healthy tree will not bleed if pruned at any season.

1965 P. Bell & D. Coombe tr. Strasburger's Textbk. Bot. (new ed.) ii. 237 Many plants bleed only in the spring and at a certain stage of development, in others bleeding can occur at almost any time.

1625 J. Hart Anat. Urines ii. iv. 73 I caused him bleed oftner then once.

1697 J. D. in Tutchin Search Honesty A ij Goe Bleed, use Hellebore, and shave thy head.

1833 R. Browning Pauline 17 Her..lips which bleed Like a mountain berry.

a1500 (?c1400) Sir Triamour (Cambr.) (1937) l. 687 For at the iustyng wolde y bene..My body for to blede.

c1500 Spirit. Remedies in J. O. Halliwell Nugæ Poeticæ (1844) 67 For us thou letteste thy breste be bled.

1674 R. Godfrey Var. Injuries in Physick 102 Her Husband was Bleeded by an Apothecaries order.

1737 A. Pope Epist. of Horace ii. ii. 13 That from a Patriot..Have bled and purg'd me to a simple Vote.

1804 J. Abernethy Surg. Observ. 177 As he was perfectly well he was but slightly bled.

1680 C. Cotton in G. W. Singer Researches Hist. Playing Cards 343 When they intend to bleed a coll to some purpose..they always fix half a score packs of cards before.

1850 W. M. Thackeray Pendennis II. xxx. 305 By Jove, sir, you've bled that poor woman enough.

1901 S. Merwin & H. K. Webster Calumet ‘K’ xii. 224 Men will take every opportunity to bleed a corporation.

1834 F. Marryat Peter Simple I. vi. 66 ‘And, Mr. Chucks, recollect this afternoon that you bleed all the buoys.’ Bleed the boys, thought I, what can that be for?

1634 Malory's Arthur (1816) I. 309 Sir Tristram he bled both the upper sheet, and the nether sheet, and pillows.

1835 ‘J. A. Arnett’ Bibliopegia 203 A work is said to bleed, if cut into the print.

1876 Daily Tel. 9 June 2/1 (Farmer) The pages bleed in many places—i.e. the binder's knife when cutting the edges has also cut away portions of the printed matter.

a1877 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. I. 297/2 Bleeding, cutting into the printed matter of a book when cutting the edges.

1917 E. G. Gress Art & Pract. Typogr. (ed. 2) 126 This plate can then be printed in color on gummed paper and the paper trimmed so as to ‘bleed’ the edges of the printed background.

1942 H. A. Maddox Dict. Stationery 14 If a guillotine operator slightly cuts into the type of a printed forme when trimming the edges, he is said to have bled the edges. The term Bleed-off is a modern adaptation applied to the style of..magazine pages in which illustrations are actually run right off the edge of the paper. The term employed by some printers is..‘cut to bleed’.

1948 Words into Type (Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc., N.Y.) 533 Printing is said to bleed when the margins are overcut in trimming and the printing mutilated.

1962 Listener 26 July 142/3 It looks brilliant to place a detail from one Cézanne beneath the whole of another and to make the detail ‘bleed’ off.

1889 Cent. Dict. (at cited word) To bleed the brakes, in a locomotive, to relieve the pressure on the air-brakes by opening the bleeding-valve or release-cock of the brake-cylinder.

1959 Motor Man. (ed. 36) iii. 61 A very rich mixture of fuel, and a little air bled in by the air bleed at the top of the well.

1962 A. Shepard in J. Glenn et al. Into Orbit 104 The technicians found they were able to bleed off the excess pressure by turning some of the valves by remote control.

1962 Which? Car Suppl. Oct. 138/1 The sponginess of the brake system could not be entirely overcome by bleeding the hydraulic system.