wounds, blood

[birdeen's call]

What does blood do when it's out of the veins? Does it congeal? Are there any other words for that?

What do wounds do, except the wounds of people sick of hemophilia? I know they heal, but are there any other words for it? I mean verbs that would specifically mean the action that wounds take, less general than "heal".

 

[Tullia]

What does blood do when it's out of the veins? Does it congeal? Are there any other words for that?

What do wounds do, except the wounds of people sick of hemophilia? I know they heal, but are there any other words for it? I mean verbs that would specifically mean the action that wounds take, less general than "heal".

Blood seems to have an affinity for "c" words; we could use coagulate or clot for the same meaning as congeal. Congeal has more negative overtones - food left out too long can also go "congealed".

Wounds can heal, we would also use knit for the purpose, I think. The imagery there is something rejoining, rebonding, so flesh coming back together over a wound, or a broken bone growing back together.

 

[birdeen's call]

Thank you, this is very helpful!!

 

[vil]

I’m not a teacher.

Hi birdeen's call,

Here are a few synonyms of the term in question in the full sense of the word:

clot, coagulate, coalesce, curdle, freeze, fuse, harden, jell, solidity, stiffen, thicken.

Regards,


V.

 

[Tullia]

In English we do indeed use curdle for blood, but not after it's left our veins. Bloodcurdling is an adjective we use to mean "very frightening" and we could also say things like "My blood curdled at the sound of the scream" to mean that we were very scared by the sound. However, the blood has to be still inside us for that!

Blood can't really coalesce; that's about separate things mixing/blending. Blood is just one thing. Broken bones could perhaps coalesce, although it doesn't sound very natural to say. I'm not sure wounds could, because the flesh, even when torn, is still one thing.

Blood doesn't freeze outside of the body (unless you are somewhere exceptionally cold, of course!) but we do say non-literally things like: "The blood froze in my veins" with a similar meaning of being frightened or shocked as in the above example for curdle.

Broken bones can fuse , and I've also heard people describe them as "re-fusing" in the sense of "fusing back together again".

Wounds wouldn't harden, and it doesn't sound very natural for blood, although I suppose that blood does do actually it.

I don't like jell for blood either as the link to jelly is not a pleasant mental image!

Solidify is good for blood, not for wounds!

We use stiffen to talk about what happens to the flesh of dead bodies (rigor mortis) so I'd avoid it for blood or wounds because of that.

Thicken is a nice term for blood; it is much better than stiffen for any liquid. It's only a stage in the process, however - first blood thickens, then it solidifies.

 

[Tullia]

Wounds mend and tend to have a scab on them and granulate when healing. Blood, outside of the body, dries.

Scab is a good one! Wounds can scab over, scab, or have a scab, or even form a scab; all four formations sound good to my ear.

 

[birdeen's call]

I've just learned a new word, "gore". Could it be used to mean that?

 

[Tullia]

Hmm... yes and no.

When we use gore as a verb it refers the the action (this is quite hard to describe) of something like a horn stabbing or ripping something open. Elephants would gore a lion with their tusks, or a unicorn might gore an orc (fantasy references, please note I don't believe in unicorns!).

You couldn't say blood had gored; the usage of gore related to this thread is of it as a noun. Gore can refer to blood that has left the body, but it's not a very pleasant image - it's become generalised to refer to any high level of "blood'n'guts" or excessive violence in films, for example. We don't often use it in a technical sense nowadays. The related adjective is "gory".

As an aside, an alternate meaning of "gore" which might interest any seamstresses out here is to refer to a triangular shaped piece of cloth, used in an item of clothing to give it a desired shape; you would commonly see them in skirts which are narrow over the hips but flare from the knee, for example. I've often wondered where that usage comes from.

 

[Raymott]

Wounds mend and tend to have a scab on them and granulate when healing. Blood, outside of the body, dries.

Blood does dry through evaporation outside the body, but it also coagulates. Coagulation (clotting, congealing) is a specific biochemical reaction unrelated to merely losing water. For example, you can get a clot in your legs (a deep venous thrombosis) or lungs (pulmonary embolus) without the blood drying at all. If you add enough heparin to blood outside the body, it won't clot, but it will eventually dry through evaporation.
I agree about wounds.

 

[birdeen's call]

As an aside, an alternate meaning of "gore" which might interest any seamstresses out here is to refer to a triangular shaped piece of cloth, used in an item of clothing to give it a desired shape; you would commonly see them in skirts which are narrow over the hips but flare from the knee, for example. I've often wondered where that usage comes from.

I happen to know that because I have just read it in a dictionary. A gore is a triangular piece of land. I'll just quote the American Heritage Dictionary:

gore 2 (gôr, g

r)n.1. A triangular or tapering piece of cloth forming a part of something, as in a skirt or sail.
2. A small triangular piece of land.

tr.v. gored, gor·ing, gores 1. To provide with a gore.
2. To cut into a gore.

[Middle English, from Old English g

ra, triangular piece of land.]

We have a similar homonymia in Polish, also one word for a piece of land and a piece of cloth.

 

[riquecohen]

I happen to know that because I have just read it in a dictionary. A gore is a triangular piece of land. I'll just quote the American Heritage Dictionary:


We have a similar homonymia in Polish, also one word for a piece of land and a piece of cloth.

The word that I´ve always used for that triangular piece of cloth is gusset.