give someone a bloody nose
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to defeat or humiliate someone
Literally: to cause someone's nose to bleed
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
As John Major said, they've given us a bloody nose.
Iraq's attempt to give the Tehran government a quick bloody nose was only a partial success.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “give someone a bloody nose” mean?
to defeat or humiliate someone Literally: to cause someone's nose to bleed
Is “give someone a bloody nose” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.