bloodsucker
/ˈblʌdˌsʌkɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.81 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An animal or insect that drinks the blood of others, especially by sucking blood through a puncture wound; a leech, mosquito etc.
noun
Someone who sheds blood; a bloodthirsty person; a violent criminal.
noun
Someone who preys on others, or who attempts to take as much from others as possible; an extortioner; a leech.
Derogatory
noun
A supernatural being who feeds on (especially human) blood; a vampire.
noun
Any of various lizards of the family Agamidae, especially the changeable lizard (Calotes versicolor) of Asia, and the jacky dragon of Australia, Amphibolurus muricatus).
Example Sentences
- "I once saw a boy who waded beyond the gravel walk out of the water with bloodsuckers fringing his ankles like leaves."
- "You're a bloodsucker, so you eat blood. Just blood."
- "Meyer, in turn, offered a chaste variation on the promiscuous bloodsuckers of Anne Rice. And back in Rice’s heyday of the 1980s and ’90s, mass market copies of her “Interview With the Vampire” occupied the same spinning racks as other critically slammed authors of the ’70s and ’80s: Danielle Steel, Sidney Sheldon, Judith Krantz, Jackie Collins."
Etymology
From blood + sucker. The “changeable lizard” sense is perhaps because of the reddish color of its neck.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈblʌdˌsʌkɚ/
Usage
Inflected Forms
bloodsuckers (plural)
blood-sucker (alternative)
bloudsucker (alternative)
bloud-sucker (alternative)