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I'm watching documentary about vet. And I can't understand meaning of 'draining' in these conversations.

  1. One person brought their cat to doctor. She said this about cat's eye.

It was all puffed up, and then the next morning it was draining blood.

Does this mean cat was bleeding through eye? or it became red? or became pale?

  1. Doctor looked into Dog's eye and said "draining eye"

Does this mean eye became red or dry?

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  • Did you look for 'drain' and 'draining' in a dictionary? May 23, 2021 at 19:11
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    Of course I did. I understand draining pool kind of stuff. But I can't understand that sentence. what is draining from where and draining how.
    – eslnl
    May 23, 2021 at 19:33
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    Clearly, blood was running (draining) from the cat's eye. May 23, 2021 at 19:36

1 Answer 1

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You're quite right, usually the verb "draining" works the other way round - when something "drains" a liquid, that means it's draining it from something else into itself. However, here I'm pretty sure it is being used to mean that blood was leaking from the cat's eye. I think this sentence is in fact grammatically wrong, but from the context I'm pretty sure it is what they meant. Same with the dog, presumably the vet was trying to indicate that tears or other fluid were running from the dog's eye.

"Draining" is used a lot in medical jargon, for instance "draining an ulcer", so perhaps this has influenced them to use the word on the grounds that it's a more "professional" term than, say, "leaking", even though it's grammatically not what they meant.

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  • Can you explain the difference between "bleeding eye" and "draining eye"?
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 24, 2021 at 6:41
  • Can you explain what it is you want me to explain, because I'm not clear? They mean the same thing as phrases on their own like that (except that "draining" can be any fluid, not just blood), but I don't know what kind of sentence you have in mind.
    – A. B.
    May 24, 2021 at 8:22
  • Why did the doctor say "draining eye" and not "bleeding eye". Are the two expressions exact synonyms?
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 24, 2021 at 8:32
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    It was blood, the OP says so “it was draining blood”. I don't think the answer is wrong per se, but it needs more detail, and it looks like you you didn't read or noticed the "blood" element, which is mentioned in the Q.
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 24, 2021 at 9:54
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    OP here, case 1 was a cat and case 2 was a dog. so 2 doesn't have the blood element. Since 1 and 2 use the same 'draining' so I was wondering that both meant the same thing. A. B.'s answer makes sense to me. thank you.
    – eslnl
    May 24, 2021 at 10:44

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