bloodsuckern.
/ˈblʌdsʌkə/, U.S. /ˈblədˌsəkər/ 1.
a. An animal that feeds on blood, as a leech or a biting fly.
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the world > animals > invertebrates > subkingdom Metazoa > grade Triploblastica or Coelomata > phylum Annelida > [noun] > class Hirudinea > member of (leech)
leecha900
water leechc1350
bloodsuckera1387
lough-leech1562
loch leech1579
sanguisuge1585
censur1597
leech-worm1794
hirudinean1835
sangsuea1849
snail-leech1865
a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1872) IV. 243 Virgill þrewe a goldene blood soukere [L. sanguisugam] in to þe botme of a pitte.
?a1425 tr. Guy de Chauliac Grande Chirurgie (N.Y. Acad. Med.) f. 156v Haly Abbas..makyng comparacioun atuyx fleobotomye and ventoses and blodesoukerez which he calleþ yrudines i. waterlechez.
1541 T. Elyot Castel of Helthe (new ed.) 61 Evacuation by wormes founde in waters called bloudde suckers, or leaches.
1597 W. Langham Garden of Health 66 If one haue drunke a Horseleech or Bloodsucker.
1698 A. van Leeuwenhoek in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 20 174 A small Gnat, of that sort that..are no Blood-Suckers.
1733 J. Alleyne New Eng. Dispensatory iv. vi. 608 Itching or titillation is produced,..5. By all blood suckers, whether leeches, cupping, or any other.
1785 H. Baker Microscope (new ed.) II. xxix. 406 Even the nimble Flea which..sucks our Blood, is not free itself from Blood-suckers which harbour very conveniently under the Scales of its Neck.
1854 Farmer’s Compan. July 204 I wish to make inquiry regarding a disease among sheep, which I attribute to the effect of Leeches or Bloodsuckers.
1896 tr. Boas' Text-bk. Zool. 276 The Sand-fly (Simulia), a small fly-like Midge, the females of which..are blood suckers.
1944 R. Matheson Entomol. for Introd. Courses xvii. 378 Many are blood-suckers, as mosquitoes, black flies, gnats and others, and these serve as distributors of many human and animal diseases.
1962 R. M. Gordon & M. M. J. Lavoipierre Entomol. for Students of Med. xxxv. 217 Both the male and the female jigger flea are blood-suckers.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 21 Oct. d4/2 Dr. Schutt..also showed off museum specimens of his preferred bloodsuckers, the vampire bats.
b. A supernatural being that feeds on (human) blood; a vampire.
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the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > malignant monster > [noun] > vampire
vampire1745
bloodsucker1777
vampire corpse1801
penanggalan1839
Pontianak1839
langsuir1881
1777 Crit. Rev. Apr. 284 The grave is filled up, and a wooden cross, with a large stone placed at the head, to avoid the dead becoming a vampyr or a strolling nocturnal bloodsucker.
1796 S. Pegge Anonymiana (1809) 182 The accounts we have of the Vampires of Hungary are most incredible. They are Blood-suckers, that come out of their graves to torment the living.
1823 Literary Examiner 23 Aug. 125 A loving husband..is enabled by supernatural means to raise his first [wife] from the dead; but she returns a specious but beautiful bloodsucker or Goul.
1874 J. Grant Shall I win Her? xv. 196 A vampire, doctor—a bloodsucker—a ghoul!
1934 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 6 Jan. 4/2 The age-old belief in the horrible, ‘undead’ Bloodsucker, is the background of ‘The Vampire Bat’.
1977 Newsweek (Nexis) 31 Oct. 74 Parapsychologist Stephen Kaplan runs the Vampire Research Society of America, collecting information on contemporary bloodsuckers.
1997 J. C. Holte Dracula in Dark i. 7 Varney's ability to transform himself from a monstrous bloodsucker to an attractive member of the aristocracy will become a central part of Stoker's novel.
2007 Bizarre Sept. 115/2 Joe Pitt is a hardboiled, living-dead sleuth, up to his neck in virus-riddled zombies, organised-crimelords and warring clans of bloodsuckers.
2. A person who draws or sheds the blood of another; a violent or bloodthirsty person; a murderer.In quot. 1555: a cannibal.
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the world > life > death > killing > massacrer or slaughterer > [noun] > bloodshedder
shedderc1388
bloodsheddera1425
spiller1530
bloodsucker1539
bloodletter1674
1539 H. Parker Expos. Deus Ultionum Dominus sig. Ciiv He shuld find..a great quantitie of innocentes bloud drawen by these bloud suckers.
1555 R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde iii. v. f. 116 The Canibales..haue in owre tyme vyolentely taken..more then fyue thousande men to bee eaten. But let it suffice thus much to haue wandered by these monstrous bludsuckers.
1577 H. I. tr. H. Bullinger 50 Godlie Serm. II. iii. iii. sig. Ee.ij/1 The seuenth bloudsucker after beastly Nero, was Decius.
1614 L. Busher Relig. Peace 13 Ministers which perswade the King and Parliament, to burne, bannish, hang and imprison, for difference of religion are bloud-suckers and manslayers.
a1658 J. Cleveland On O.P. Sick in Wks. (1687) 383 Fall Thou subtle bloodsucker, thou cannibal!
1795 tr. J.-B. Louvet de Couvray Acct of Dangers 52 Marseilles had just got the better of these blood-suckers.
1827 J. F. Cooper Prairie II. xii. 194 The yell from the bottom drew the eyes of these blood-suckers in another quarter, and so far we are safe.
1876 Good Words 17 701/1 You want to murder my children, you bloodsucker, you villain!
1919 I. D. Levine Yashka xv. 236 Murderers! Bloodsuckers! Whom have you killed?
1997 M. Manaka Beyond Echoes Soweto 64 Bloodsucker! Woman killer! How many women have you raped before you were born?
3. figurative. A person who preys upon another's money, possessions, or other resources; an extortioner; a sponger; spec. a tax-collector.
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the mind > possession > taking > extortion > [noun] > one who
wringera1300
askera1325
extortionerc1375
exactor1382
scaffer?a1513
shaver1534
caterpillar1541
bloodsucker?1555
suck-purse1586
griper1587
extortor1590
exacter1596
extorter1605
barathrum1609
wreather1648
shark1713
vampire1741
bleeder1846
flayer1865
extortionist1885
Shylock1894
?1555 G. Menewe Plaine Subuersyon Popecatholykes sig. ff.viiv These your bloud suckers haue a good sport, by vtteryng mens confession, to put them in ieopardye to lose both bodye and goods.
1584 R. Wilson Three Ladies of London sig. Ciiiiv But I am going to a bloodsucker, and who is it? faith, Usurie, that theefe.
1604 G. Downame Lect. XV Psalme 261 An vsurer is a blood-sucker of the people.
1651 J. March Amicus Reipublicæ 50 These are they that grind the faces of the poor, that add affliction to affliction, and live upon the ruins of others; these are the mala necessaria, the bloudsuckers, the leeches of the Commonwealth.
1667 R. L'Estrange tr. F. de Quevedo Visions i. 15 I..cast my Eye upon a certain Tax-gatherer..and..ask't the Devil, whether they had not of that sort of Blood-Suckers among the rest, in their Dominions.
1724 J. Swift Let. to Shop-keepers of Ireland (new ed.) 9 While there is a Silver Six-pence left these Blood-suckers will never be quiet.
1797 C. Smith Let. ?July (2003) 281 Lord Egremont (desirous to extricate my family from some of the blood suckers..) has lent me the money.
1857 S. Osborn Quedah xx. 276 A floating population..of pirates and those bloodsuckers who lived upon them.
1888 M. E. Ireland tr. J. J. Messmer Red Carl xiii. 257 They would not allow their money to go into the hands of these blood-suckers.
1913 J. Farnol Amateur Gentleman x. 73 Jasper Gaunt is the harshest, most merciless bloodsucker that ever battened and grew rich on the poverty and suffering of his fellow men.
1971 M. Pilisuk & P. Pilisuk Poor Amer. 4 They shift rapidly, are not in any organization, and are easily exploited by labor racketeers and by management blood-suckers.
2006 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 12 Sept. a25/4 The bloodsuckers of the world's poor, the immiserators of nations and the thieves..: these are the ones who control the international political system.
4. Any of various Old World lizards of the family Agamidae; esp. the garden lizard of Asia, Calotes versicolor, of which the male's head and forequarters can turn red in the breeding season, and the jacky dragon of Australia, Amphibolurus muricatus.In quot. 1797 perhaps: a gecko.
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the world > animals > reptiles > order Squamata (lizards and snakes) > suborder Lacertilia (lizards) > [noun] > family Gekkonidae > member of (gecko)
gecko1774
bloodsucker1797
the world > animals > reptiles > order Squamata (lizards and snakes) > suborder Lacertilia (lizards) > [noun] > family Agamidae (dragon lizards) > member of
bloodsucker1797
agamian1831
Jew lizard1833
agamoid1865
agamid1878
water dragon1908
the world > animals > reptiles > order Squamata (lizards and snakes) > suborder Lacertilia (lizards) > [noun] > family Agamidae (dragon lizards) > member of genus Amphibolurus (racehorse lizard)
Jew lizard1833
grammatophore1845
bloodsucker1852
racehorse lizard1923
1797 S. James Narr. Voy. Arabia 44 The Bloodsucker is shaped not unlike the Alligator; it is about four-times as large as the Lizard; it hops from tree to tree.
1819 J. Morton Poet. Remains J. Leyden p. xc A large lizard, termed a blood-sucker.
1852 L. A. Meredith My Home in Tasmania II. 37 Another description of lizard is here vulgarly called the ‘blood-sucker’.
1882 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 736/2 Calotes is another genus of agamoids peculiar to the East Indies; it comprises numerous species well known in India by the name of ‘blood-suckers’.
1902 Jrnl. Dept. Agric. W. Austral. Jan. 10 On two successive days..sixteen lizards (Hinulia, sp.) and seven bloodsuckers (Amphibolurus, sp.) were successfully managed.
1931 Jrnl. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 34 iv. 1041 (title) The natural history of Calotes versicolor, the common bloodsucker.
2008 M. Walters Chinese Wildlife 104 The common bloodsucker (Calotes versicolor) is abundant in scrub, woods and grassland in the south.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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