Bloody

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.

  1. ^ Sterfania Biscetti, "The diachronic development of bloody: a case study in historical pragmatics". In Richard Dury, Maurizio Gotti, Marina Dossena (eds.) English Historical Linguistics 2006 Volume 2: Lexical and semantic change. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2008, p. 55.