Meaning & use
hemorrhage
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable or uncountablemedical
Heavy bleeding from a damaged blood vessel, inside or outside the body.
Grammar: Can be countable (a brain hemorrhage) or uncountable (to stop hemorrhage).
Patterns
- a hemorrhage in something
- die of a hemorrhage
The patient suffered a brain hemorrhage after the fall.
Doctors worked to stop the hemorrhage quickly.
A severe hemorrhage can lead to shock.
verbintransitivemedical
To bleed heavily.
Grammar: No object: the patient hemorrhaged.
Patterns
- hemorrhage after something
She began to hemorrhage after the surgery.
The injured driver was hemorrhaging at the scene.
The wound hemorrhaged for several minutes.
verbtransitive or intransitivefigurative
To lose something valuable, such as money, staff or support, quickly and in large amounts.
Grammar: Takes an object when naming what is lost: the firm hemorrhaged cash.
Patterns
- hemorrhage money
- hemorrhage staff
The company hemorrhaged cash through the winter.
The team hemorrhaged players after the coach left.
The party is hemorrhaging support.
Word forms
| plural | hemorrhages |
|---|---|
| third person singular | hemorrhages |
| past tense | hemorrhaged |
| -ing form | hemorrhaging |
Common combinations
- massive hemorrhage
- A massive hemorrhage required emergency surgery.
- internal hemorrhage
- The scan showed an internal hemorrhage.
- cerebral hemorrhage
- He died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
- control the hemorrhage
- Nurses acted to control the hemorrhage.
- hemorrhage money
- The project hemorrhaged money for years.
Synonyms and how they differ
- bleed
- Bleed is the everyday verb and may be mild, while hemorrhage means heavy, dangerous bleeding.
- bleeding
- Bleeding is the general noun and can be light; a hemorrhage is serious.
- drain
- Drain, in the figurative sense, suggests steady loss, whereas hemorrhage suggests a fast, damaging loss.
Opposites
Word family
- hemorrhagic adjective
- involving heavy bleeding, as in hemorrhagic fever
- hemorrhoid noun
- a swollen vein near the anus, from the same Greek root
- hemophilia noun
- a disorder in which blood does not clot properly
Commonly confused: hemorrhage or hemorrhoid?
hemorrhage vs hemorrhoid
A hemorrhoid is a swollen vein, not a bleed in general, though they share a root and spelling pattern.
Practice
The airline has been ____ money since the fuel price rose.
Choose one answer.
Hemorrhaging money means losing it fast and heavily. Hoarding would mean saving it, so it contradicts the sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hemorrhage”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.