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Blood

Anatomy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The circulating fluid that sustains life, often symbolizing kinship, passion, violence, or sacrifice.

Detailed Definition
Poets use blood as both a literal bodily substance and a charged emblem of inheritance, desire, injury, and communal belonging. Its color and movement can make an image vivid, while its loss can signify vulnerability or death. References to blood may explore family lines, political conflict, religious sacrifice, or the intensity of love. In lyric poetry, blood often joins the inward body to larger natural cycles of tide, river, rain, and seasonal renewal.
Example
Example in poetry:
“My blood approves” in Emily Dickinson’s “Wild Nights” makes desire feel immediate and bodily; “Blood will have blood” from Macbeth uses blood as a symbol of guilt that breeds further violence; A poet might describe autumn leaves as “blood-red on the pavement” to intensify a scene of decline; “The blood remembered its old country” can connect ancestry to the body
Additional Notes
Blood can be literal or symbolic: family “blood,” violent injury, religious sacrifice, or intense desire. Its movement through the body also makes it useful for images of inheritance, urgency, and connection.
Also Known As
Lifeblood Gore
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