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Draw blood

Idiomatic Phrase
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

To provoke a strong emotional or physical reaction; to make a point that wounds, shocks, or effectively harms another.

Detailed Definition
From literal combat, this idiom marks the moment when words or actions break through defenses and cause genuine damage. In poetry, it signals the moment of poetic power—when language penetrates, disturbs, or genuinely moves its target. Poets invoke it to celebrate the capacity of verse to cut through numbness and complacency, to wound unjust power, or to break open defended hearts. It appears in poems of political witness, satire, and elegy, wherever the poet insists that words have consequences, that art can injure what needs injuring and heal what needs healing. The phrase honors poetry's aggression as well as its tenderness, acknowledging that true engagement sometimes requires breaking the skin.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about the power of honest criticism might use draw blood to honor the critic whose words genuinely wound — not from cruelty but from the accuracy that makes evasion impossible; In a poem about poetry's social function, to draw blood is to describe what the best political verse accomplishes — breaking through the numbness of familiarity to produce a response that confirms the words have reached somewhere real; The phrase suits poems about debate and intellectual contest, where the moment one speaker draws blood — lands the point that cannot be answered — is the pivot on which the whole exchange turns; A love poem might use draw blood to describe the argument that finally said what had been left unsaid — painful, clarifying, the wound evidence that something real had been touched; In a satirical poem, to draw blood is the measure of effectiveness — the satire that provokes outrage from its target has drawn blood, while the one that produces only comfortable laughter has missed; The phrase connects to a long tradition of war and combat imagery in poems about artistic and intellectual contest, where drawing blood is not destruction but the mark of genuine engagement
Additional Notes
This idiom can be literal, emotional, or rhetorical. In poetry, to “draw blood” may mean to wound with words, expose vulnerability, or prove that someone is not invincible. It is useful in satire, argument, love poetry, and dramatic monologue. Related imagery includes knives, thorns, paper cuts, red ink, and the moment language becomes injury.
Also Known As
Wound Provoke Hurt deeply
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