bleeding edge

American

the most advanced stage of a technology, art, etc., usually experimental and risky.

bleeding edge British

noun

the very forefront of technological development

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of bleeding edge

1980–85; patterned on cutting edge or leading edge

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Lamphere, it would seem, was on the bleeding edge of a new kind of therapy.

From Slate

And it might not be on the bleeding edge of fashion trends.

From The Wall Street Journal

As an MIT computer-science professor, Regina Barzilay was used to living on the bleeding edge of innovation, teaching computers to understand words in the nascent field of natural language processing.

From MarketWatch

"Especially as we work in an environment at the bleeding edge of technology - we're kind of used to things changing," he says.

From BBC

On a recent episode of What Next, host Mary Harris spoke to Twilley about the bleeding edge of artificial blood research and why we need more blood in the first place.

From Slate

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023