Bleed

verb (old).—1.  To victimise; to MILK (q.v.); to extort money so that the loss is felt; to RUSH (q.v.).

  1668.  DRYDEN, An Evening’s Love, iv., 1. In fine, he is vehement, and BLEEDS on to fourscore or an hundred; and I not willing to tempt Fortune, come away a moderate winner of 200 Pistols.

  1748.  T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). BLEED (v.). … also to part with money freely, upon proposing something agreeable to a person’s disposition, whether it be in gaming or anything else.

  1751.  SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, lxvi. To whom he was particularly agreeable, on account of his person, address, and BLEEDING freely at play.

  1830.  S. WARREN, Diary of a Late Physician, xxii. The reputed readiness with which she BLED, at last brought her the honour of an old countess, who condescended to win from her, at two sittings, very nearly £5,000.

  1849.  THACKERAY, Pendennis, lxviii. ‘You have got a bill of sale for her furniture…. By Jove, sir, you’ve BLED that poor woman enough.’

  1885.  Manchester Evening News, 23 June, 2. Men who give bills have to BLEED for the accommodation.

  2.  (printers’).—A book BLEEDS when the margins are ‘planed’ down so that the edge of the printed portion is cut away.

  1876.  Daily Telegraph, June 9, 2, col. 1. So very carelessly has the mechanical part of production been done that, in the phraseology of the craft—half technical, half slang—the pages BLEED in many places—i.e., the binder’s knife when cutting the edges has also cut away portions of the printed matter.

  3.  (nautical).—To let out water.

  TO BLEED THE MONKEY, vverbal phr. (nautical).—To steal rum from the mess-tub ‘the monkey’: exclusively naval, ‘monkeys’ not being known on merchant ships: also SUCKING THE MONKEY, and TAPPING THE ADMIRAL.

  1889.  Chambers’s Journal, 3 Aug., 495. TO SUCK THE MONKEY is a phrase explained in Peter Simple as having originally been used among sailors for drinking rum out of cocoa-nuts, the milk having been poured out and the liquor substituted. It is now applied to the act of drinking on the sly from a cask by inserting a straw through a gimlet hole, and to drinking generally. Barham, in the legend of the The Black Mousquetaire says: