blood sport

noun

1
: a sport or contest (such as hunting or cockfighting) involving bloodshed
2
: a ruthless or cutthroat competition or conflict
… the blood sport that is political blogging.Massimo Calabresi

Examples of blood sport in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
In the ruins of a dystopian Rio de Janeiro—a city fractured by class conflict and addicted to blood sport—a resistance leader is forced to enter a violent, high-stakes race to save his sister from a fate worse than death. Mia Galuppo, HollywoodReporter, 4 Feb. 2026 Fittingly, more than a few observers have been eager to turn art into blood sport, pitting Coen against Coen, Safdie against Safdie, and theorizing about which sibling is the greater talent. Justin Chang, New Yorker, 2 Jan. 2026 That’s bad news for us but good news for the foremost childhood games turned anti-capitalist blood sport film series. Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 3 Dec. 2025 Obsessed anglers who lived in Key West, and whose fiction sometimes gravitates toward horses, blood sports, and male protagonists with a masculine swagger counterbalanced by a certain reflective, existentialist temperament—the similarities between the two are obvious, yet go only so far. Tyler Austin Harper, The Atlantic, 30 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for blood sport

Word History

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of blood sport was in 1886

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Cite this Entry

“Blood sport.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blood%20sport. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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