Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
bloodwit

bloodwit

9.9
A fine paid for causing injury or killing someone
  • noun
  • /ˈblʌdˌwɪt/
  • Archaic
translation icon : sangre
  • In medieval England, a bloodwit was imposed on those who injured others in a fight.

Examples

  • The bloodwit was high.

  • The court demanded a bloodwit after the altercation left one man wounded.

  • Historical records mention the payment of bloodwit for acts of violence within the community.

  • What is a bloodwit?

  • In ancient times, a person who committed murder could avoid further punishment by paying a bloodwit to the victim's family.

  • The village elders decided that the offender must pay a bloodwit to acknowledge the harm he had caused.

  • To settle the dispute, the accused agreed to pay a bloodwit to compensate for the injury he inflicted.

Synonyms

wite
vsbloodwit
  • Archaic
1 9.9

A punishment or strong blame for doing something wrong

is a specific fine paid for causing bodily harm rather than any punishment

Surface Forms

bloodwit singular
bloodwits plural

Morphology

bloodwit = blood (opaque) = blood + wit

Although composed of 'blood' + 'wit', the second element is archaic (wite/wit = fine), so learners cannot derive the legal meaning from modern components.

Etymology

Bloodwit comes from blood and wit, where wit was an old English word for 'punishment' or 'fine'. So a bloodwit was literally a 'blood fine' — money paid as punishment when someone injured another and caused bleeding.