1684. Dryden, Prol. Southerne's Disappointment, line 59. The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk. [m.]
1706. Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, Act iv., Sc. 1. Plume. Thou art a bloody impudent fellow. [There is no question of fighting in the context.]
1711. Swift, Journal to Stella, 8 May, letter 22. It was bloody hot walking to-day.
1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle's Log, ch. ii. 'I've a bloody great mind to go down with him,' stuttered another.
From the foregoing examples the word would appear to have been once in literary use; it is not now customary to print it in full, but thus, by. In passing it may be mentioned that there is no ground for attributing its derivation to 'By'r Our Lady.'
Bloody Back, subs. (old).—A soldier; a nickname alluding to the colour of his coat. [From bloody = of the colour of blood, i.e., scarlet or blood-red + back.]
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Bloody back. A jeering appellation for a soldier.
Bloody Chasm. To bridge the bloody chasm, phr. (American).—A favourite expression with orators who, during the years immediately succeeding the Civil War, sought to obliterate the memory of the struggle. The antithetical phrase is to wave the bloody shirt (q.v.).
Bloody Eleventh, subs. (military). The Eleventh Regiment of Foot. At the battle of Salamanca, fought with the French, the corps was nearly cut to pieces, whence its sanguinary sobriquet. At Fontenoy and Ostend also, it was hard-pressed and nearly annihilated.
Bloody Jemmy, subs. (common).—An uncooked sheep's head.—See Sanguinary James for synonyms.
Bloody Shirt. To wave the bloody shirt.—A phrase which is only one of many of a similar character, variants such as 'to wave the crimson banner,' 'the ensanguined under garment,' etc., being quite frequently met with in American journalism. Its origin and history is thus explained in Americanisms, Old and New:—It is a political phrase used in the States to signify the opening anew or keeping alive of factious strife on party questions. Primarily it was the symbol of those who, during the Reconstruction period at the close of the rebellion of the Southern or Confederate States, would not suffer the Civil War to sink into oblivion out of consideration for the feelings of the vanquished. Perhaps a more odious term never crept into politics than the bloody shirt; it is alike distasteful to the sense, brutal and vulgar, and capable of misuse. There are still those who, in American politics, in the thousand and one points of difference which continually and inevitably must arise between institutions so diverse in origin, tradition, and practice as those of the North and South, seek for party purposes to estrange the one from the other by keeping alive the exciting memories of the old bitter struggle. When a man is said to have waved the bloody shirt it is known that he has gone back in spirit and intent to the sorrowful days of the Republic, when the blue and
