[Shorter form of BLOOD-SHOTTEN (shot being the later form of the pa. pple.).] A. adj.
1. Of the eye: Over-shot or suffused with blood; having the exposed part of the eyeball more or less tinged with blood from inflammation of the blood-vessels of the conjunctiva.
[1552. Huloet, Bloudeshot in the eye.]
a. 1618. Raleigh, Rem. (1664), 124. Those whose Eyes are blood-shot.
a. 1679. T. Goodwin, Wks. (1865), X. 149. As we say of the eye that it is blood-shot, so we may of the heart that it is sin-shot.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), I. 44. Pale cheeks and blood-shot eyes her grief express.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 110. His eyes were bloodshot; his cheeks pale and livid.
2. fig. and transf.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., i. (1858), 43. What fever was boiling in hin, that he should see all the world blood-shot?
1879. Q. Rev., April, 412. The papal scare assumed a novel and a bloodshot hue. [Cf. BLOODSHOT v. quot. 1593.]
† B. sb. [The adj. used absolutely.] Obs.
† 1. An effusion of blood, resulting from inflammation of the conjunctiva of the eye.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 582. Very profitable for the bleardness or bloud-shot of the eyes.
1671. Salmon, Syn. Med., I. lii. 128. Ophtalmia, Inflamation of the Eyes, is that which is called by some Blood-shot.
† 2. An effusion of blood in any other part. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Engeleure, a chilblane; or, the bloud-shot which cold settles, and congeales, vpon the fingers.
