bloody

bloody

1. Bloody developed its meaning in BrE as ‘a vague epithet expressing anger, resentment, etc.’ in the 18c, and rapidly became a mere intensive, especially in negative contexts (not a bloody one). The OED called it ‘foul language’, and as recently as 1995 the Concise Oxford Dictionary called it ‘coarse slang’; but since then, it has seemed increasingly tame, and other words having taken on its former mantle of offensiveness:

• You want to use your bloody loaf, Stubbs, or we'll never win this war the way you're carrying on —Brian Aldiss, 1971.

2. As an adverb bloody has been used conversationally as an intensive since the later 17c in combinations such as bloody drunk, bloody angry, and bloody ill. G. B. Shaw was entitled to expect a sharp reaction from the audience when in 1914 he caused Eliza Doolittle to exclaim ‘Walk! Not bloody likely.’ As with the adjective, however, this use weakened considerably in effect during the 20c, and formed a regular part of the language of television dramas in expressions such as serves you bloody right and you bloody well do it or else.

3. These uses are recorded in American dictionaries, but are not properly part of AmE. It is a pleasing myth that Australians use them more freely and vigorously than in other parts of the English-speaking world, and the colourful entry in the Australian National Dictionary (1988) appears to support it, with examples of use steeped in the language of pioneering adversity and ‘ranging in force from mildly irritating to execrable’:

• You must think yourself a damned clever bushman, talking about tracking a bloody dingo over bloody ground where a bloody regiment of newly-shod horses would scarcely leave a bloody track —M. J. O'Reilly, 1944.