a. [see THIRSTY a.] Thirsting for blood, eager for bloodshed.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. xxv. 9. O destroye not my soule with the synners, ner my life with the bloudthurstie.
1581. Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 753. God will abhorre those bloudthirstie and deceiptfull men.
1639. G. Daniel, Ecclus. xxii. 86. Some busines for blood-thirsty Swords.
1809. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1867), I. 160. The rage of an insane and bloodthirsty faction.
Hence Bloodthirstily, Bloodthirstiness.
1880. J. Hawthorne, E. Quentin, etc. II. 12. Gentlemen … wore long swords with basket hilts, and were bloodthirstily polite in using the same.
1649. Bp. Reynolds, Serm. Hosea iii. 9. The bloudthirstinesse of the Leech.
1862. Shirley, Nugæ Crit., § 5. 209. Even the bloodthirstiness of Alva could not rival his master’s.
