bloodshot, a. and n.
(ˈblʌdʃɒt)
[Shorter form of blood-shotten (shot being the later form of the pa. pple.).]
A. adj.
1. Of the eye: Over-shot or suffused with blood; having the exposed part of the eyeball more or less tinged with blood from inflammation of the blood-vessels of the conjunctiva.
| [1552 Huloet, Bloudeshot in the eye.] a 1618 Raleigh Rem. (1664) 124 Those whose Eyes are blood-shot. a 1679 T. Goodwin Wks. (1865) X. 149 As we say of the eye that it is blood-shot, so we may of the heart that it is sin-shot. 1720 Gay Poems (1745) I. 44 Pale cheeks and blood-shot eyes her grief express. 1824 W. Irving T. Trav. I. 110 His eyes were bloodshot; his cheeks pale and livid. |
2. fig. and transf.
Cf. bloodshot v. quot. 1593.
| 1851 Thackeray Eng. Hum. i. (1858) 43 What fever was boiling in him, that he should see all the world blood-shot? 1879 Q. Rev. Apr. 412 The papal scare assumed a novel and a bloodshot hue. |
† B. n. [The adj. used absolutely.] Obs.
† 1. An effusion of blood, resulting from inflammation of the conjunctiva of the eye.
| 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 582 Very profitable for the bleardness or bloud-shot of the eyes. 1671 Salmon Syn. Med. i. lii. 128 Ophtalmia, Inflamation of the Eyes, is that which is called by some Blood-shot. |
† 2. An effusion of blood in any other part. Obs.
| 1611 Cotgr., Engeleure, a chilblane; or, the bloud-shot which cold settles, and congeales, vpon the fingers. |