Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

written in blood en · ADJ

Meanings

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic, not-comparable) Having arisen out of tragedy.
    • Safety rules are written in blood...they exist because someone was hurt. 1997 June 14, Michael Brady, Jerry Berryhill, Tom McCormack, “'How We've Gone 5 Million Man-Hours without a Lost Time Accident'”, in Modern Casting, American Foundrymen's Society, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, pages 34-37:
    • The enduring lesson of Bhopal is that laws written in blood must be enforced with unwavering political will. 2023 September 14, Nishant Dubey, “THE BREATH OF LAW: JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AND POLICY INTERVENTIONS FOR AIR POLLUTION PREVENTION IN POST-BHOPAL INDIA”, in BIMS International Research Journal of Management and Commerce, volume 8, number 3, →ISSN, page 18:
    • […] best practices are expensive and cumbersome, which is why safety regulations are usually written in blood. 2021, James W. Rappaport, “Air Transport and the Pandemic: Missteps and Lessons Learned”, in Issues in Aviation Law and Policy, volume 20, number 2, Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, →ISSN, page 274:
    • As far as I'm concerned, that federal consent decree is written in blood, the blood of those who have been brutally murdered at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. 2025 May 22, Matt Sepic, Michel Martin, 3:04 from the start, in DOJ dismisses investigations of police in Minneapolis and Louisville: NPR, spoken by Nekima Levy Armstrong, via National Public Radio, archived from the original on 22 May 2025:
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic, not-comparable) Incredibly harsh or strict; brutal.
    • The Colony was ruled during that period by laws written in blood; and its history shows how the narrow selfishness of despotic power could counteract the best efforts of benevolence. 1874, Thomas Hicks Wynne, General Assembly of Virginia, “Introductory Note”, in Thomas Hicks Wynne, editor, Colonial records of Virginia, R. F. Walker, →LCCN, retrieved 07 Apr 2026, page vi:
    • […]and the home consumers have to pay the expense of maintaining and defending the empire, often with harsh and cruel laws ‘written in blood’. 2019 August 8, Ramesh Chandra, “Adam Smith, Allyn Young, Amartya Sen and the Role of the State”, in History of Economics Review, volume 78, number 1, published 10 January 2021, →DOI, page 37:

Synonyms

draconian