‘Blood thicker than water’—a lesson in etymology

The commonly used “blood is thicker than water” is a proverb in English meaning that familial bonds will always be stronger than other relationships. The oldest record of this saying can be traced back in the 12th century in German by the philosopher Evan Franklin.

The well-known idiom “blood is thicker than water” is used to say that someone’s family and blood ties are more crucial in their life than any other person, relationship, or need. 

For instance, it could mean that your blood bond with your friends is not as valuable as your blood with your family.

Blood is thicker than water is an idiomatic expression because we rarely use the actual meaning in a literal sense. Instead, we use its figurative meaning to denote the importance of family over everything.

Loyalty to family is taught to children in both Eastern and Western cultures. In the USA, children are still prepared to value their parents even if creatively and individualism are prioritized over conformity. Parents also understand the importance of respecting their children.

The word blood references familial relations and kinships. We call this figure of speech a metonymy because the word is associated with an item or concept to refer to the thing itself.

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The use of the word blood to represent family is rooted in Greek and Roman traditions and only entered English during the late 1300s. Around 600 years later, blood could be attributed to the national attention aside from family relations.

However, Messianic Rabbi Richard Pustieniak and author Albert Jack state that the quote comes from the idea that ties between people who made a blood covenant are stronger than anything.

A blood covenant was the practice of sacrificing an animal or cutting palms to establish a close bond between two parties. Such rituals may have religious, kin-related, or magical associations. 

Other ancient cultures plant a memorial tree or eat a memorial meal after a blood covenant with their new ally. 

The English priest John Lydgate also used the term in 1412. He states, “For naturally blood of any kind / Draw unto blood, where he may find.”

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The first use of the proverb in the United States can be traced to the Journal of Athabasca Department, published in 1821.

Another famous use of the saying was made by U.S. Navy Commodore Josiah Tattnall. He used it to explain why he provided aid to the British squadron after the attack on Taku Forts, at the mouth of the Pei Ho River, thereby abandoning the strict American policy of neutrality that had been adopted in the Second Opium War after the Battle of the Barrier Forts. 

Aldous Huxley used a similar proverb to say blood is thicker than water in Ninth Philosopher’s Song in 1920. The line goes, “Blood, as all men know, than water’s thicker / But water’s wider, thank the Lord, than blood.”

Other examples have turned up in sentences such as:

“You can’t tell me blood is thicker than water when you have a dysfunctional family like mine. They’re the worst.”

And “I disowned my parents the moment I turned of age. Blood is thicker than water, but sometimes you need to prioritize your own mental health.”

As well as the line, “I’m writing a horror / thriller novel and thinking about titling it ‘Blood is Thicker Than Water’.”

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In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century uses of the proverb, “blood” could be a metaphor for national or clan affiliations rather than biological kinship. For instance, in Clan-Albin, the characters are debating whether the small and soft Flora has pure enough clan ties to marry into the Craig-Gillian family, who prefer “Amazonian daughters.” 

H.C. Trumbull contrasts the expression with a comparison of blood and milk in the Arab world:

“We, in the West, are accustomed to say that ‘blood is thicker than water’; but the Arabs have the idea that blood is thicker than milk, than a mother’s milk. With them, any two children nourished at the same breast are called “milk-brothers,” or “sucking brothers”; and the tie between such is very strong.  

But the Arabs hold that brothers in the covenant of blood are closer than brothers at a common breast; that those who have tasted each other’s blood are in a surer covenant than those who have tasted the same milk together; that “blood-lickers,” as the blood-brothers are sometimes called, are more truly one than “milk-brothers,” or “sucking brothers”; that, indeed, blood is thicker than milk, as well as thicker than water.

(Etymology: a study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. In other words, the origin of a word and the historical development of its meaning.)

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