Other forms: bloodlines
A bloodline is the line of descent through a family. A royal bloodline, break the bloodline, a champion bloodline.
It is used most in breeding animals, where a bloodline is a documented record and worth real money, and in dynastic politics. Applied to people it usually carries a claim about inheritance being important, which is why it appears in fantasy so often.
1nounbloodlineThe line of descent through a family.
“The family's bloodline can be traced back to a medieval knight.”
bloodline is a line of descent.
Blood plus line, on the old idea that inheritance passed through the blood.
From blood + line.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA