bloodthirsty

adjective

1. 1

   Thirsty for blood: inexorably violent or eager for bloodshed; murderous.

   [I]t is, as I may ſo ſay, a ſavvcy Plot: and vve all knovv, moſt Reverend Fathers, that vvhat is ſavvce for a Gooſe is ſavvce for a Gander: Therefore, I ſay, as thoſe bloud-thirſty Ganders of the conſpiracy vvould have deſtroyed us Geeſe of the Senate, let us make haſte to deſtroy them, ſo I humbly move for hanging— […]

   The genuine "bloodhound" is not, naturally, the cruel, bloodthirsty animal he is generally supposed to be; nor is he the only dog that will hunt men. Like all pure hounds, he is mild, loving, and kind, and will hunt any game for which he is trained; […]

   Soon the ogress, fierce and bloodthirsty, she who for more than a hundred years had queened it in the depths, saw that a man - a queer being of the upperworld - had sunk to her realm.

   The slasher narrative is as simple as a knife in the head: Some tragic event creates a killer who then seeks bloodthirsty revenge for that primal trauma, and audiences hoot and cringe in equal measure as characters lose their lives one by one, often in unexpected or inventive ways, until a resourceful “Final Girl” manages to defeat the monster.

2. 2

   Of a book, film, etc.: depicting much violence; gory, violent.

   [T]here has been recently a tendency on the part of some Education Authorities to select these manifestly worthy portions exclusively, and to avoid reading the more archaic and, so to speak, bloodthirsty books, such as Judges, Kings, and Genesis, altogether.

3. 3

   Of a mosquito, tenaciously seeking to draw blood.

   For, whether they were attracted by the lantern, or by the unaccustomed smell of a white man for which they had been waiting for the last thousand years or so, I know not; but certainly we were presently attacked by tens of thousands of the most blood-thirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes that I ever saw or read of.

Forms

comparative

bloodthirstier, more bloodthirsty

superlative

bloodthirstiest, most bloodthirsty