Other Definitions
bloody (dict)
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BloodyThe word bloody is the adjectival form of blood but may also be used as a swear word or expletive attributive (intensifier). In this context it is of lower intensity than fuck but stronger than damn. Some say it may be derived from the phrase "by Our Lady", that is a sacrilegious invocation of the Virgin Mary, although others regard this explanation as dubious. Another theory is that it simply comes from a reference to blood. Although once considered profane in the UK and Commonwealth, it has no particular significance in the United States. The use of bloody in adult UK broadcasting aroused controversy in the 1960s and 1970s but is now unremarkable, much as happened with fuck in the 1980s to 1990s in parts of Europe. ("Fuck" is still virtually absent from American broadcasts.) The origins of the United Kingdom's objection to "bloody" may be in part due to the connotations of Bloody Mary, most commonly referring to a particularly divisive queen of England notorious for her violent supression of anti-Protestants views. Bloody has always been a very common part of Australian speech and has not been considered profane for some time. It is weaker than damn in Australian English. The word was christened "the Australian adjective" by The Bulletin on 18 August 1894. In the 1940s an Australian divorce court judge held that "the word bloody is so common in modern parlance that it is not regarded as swearing". Meanwhile, Neville Chamberlain's government was fining Britons for using the word in public. The word is seldom used with a negative connotation in the United States, but is sometimes used to imitate or ridicule the British. Apocryphal extensions of "bloody" are sometimes used in American humour, such as "bloody fuck" or "bloody shit", though the British rarely, if ever, use those phrases.
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