1. The blood necessary to life; vital blood.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. xi. 53. The weapon … deepe emperst his darksom hollow maw, And, back retyrd, his life blood forth with all did draw.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 269. Euerie word in it a gaping wound Issuing life blood.
1667. Milton, P. L., VIII. 467. Who stooping op’nd my left side, and took From thence a Rib, with cordial spirits warme, And Life-blood streaming fresh.
1789. Cowper, Cockfighter’s Garland, vii. Nor e’er had fought but he made flow The life-blood of his fiercest foe.
1827. Keble, Chr. Y., Good Friday. With the Saviour’s life-blood wet.
2. transf. and fig. That which gives life to a man’s mind, thought, action, etc.; the vital part or vitalizing influence.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., IV. i. 29. This sicknes doth infect The very Life-blood of our Enterprise.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, IV. vii. [Ovid addressing Julia] Be gon, sweete Life-bloode.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., II. Wks. 1856, I. 29. His love (life blood of all his hopes).
1644. Milton, Areop. (Arb.), 35. A good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit.
1770. Junius Lett., xxxvii. 180. The noble spirit of the metropolis is the life-blood of the state.
1857. Willmott, Pleas. Lit., xx. 110. The poetic element is the life-blood of the narrative.
b. attrib. as adj. Vital, essential. rare–1.
1641. Milton, Reform., II. Wks. (1847), 16/1. All the most sacred and lifeblood laws.
3. (Also live-blood.). The popular name for an involuntary twitching of the lip or eyelid.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, II. xi. § 2 (1734), 229. Pulsations from Flatulency, like what is vulgarly called the Life-Blood, in several Parts of the Body.
1754. Richardson, Grandison, VI. 221. My upper-lip had the motion in it, throbbing, like the pulsation which we call the life-blood.
1855. J. Dixon, Dis. Eye, 271. The orbicularis palpebrarum muscle is subject to a spasmodic twitching … popularly termed the live-blood.
