What do nosebleed seats mean exactly? Learn the definition and how to use this idiom in your writing.
Have you ever planned to go to a sports event or a concert and heard someone teasingly say that you have nosebleed seats? It simply means that your seats are located in the back, at a considerable elevation in the arena, stadium, or other type of venue.
The expression, or idiom, includes a certain amount of well-meaning humor and originates from the fact that mountain climbers often experience nosebleeds at high elevations.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an idiom is an expression or phrase with a meaning that cannot be derived from the meanings of its components. Simply put, you would not understand the meaning of the idiom “nosebleed seats” by analyzing “nosebleed” and “seats” separately.
Nosebleed seats may allow you to experience an event, but at what cost? As the late and formidable Whitney Houston once said, “I’m not crazy about arenas just because I can sell them out. It doesn’t do anything for my ego at all. I want to play places where people don’t have to sit in the nosebleed seats and wonder what the hell is going on.”
If you want to read more about idioms, check out our article on idiom vs. metaphor and learn the difference between the two.
Contents
Explaining Idioms
Before delving deeper into the meaning behind nosebleed seats, we should take a closer look at what an idiom is.
An idiom is an atypical use of words, a phrase that gained a figurative significance altogether different from that of its elements. It is not meant to be taken literally – so no one actually expects you to get a nosebleed while seated further back in a venue.
Idioms are appealing both orally and in writing. They carry a cultural meaning and can pinpoint the user as belonging to a certain country or region, as some idioms are specific to a certain geographic part of the world. Another benefit of idioms is that they can convey complex ideas with more ease.
Other examples of idioms are:
- Under the weather – which means ill or sick
- Apples to oranges – which suggests that two things cannot be compared
- Piece of cake – meaning that something is easy to do or accomplish
- Barking up the wrong tree – which means to pursue the wrong course of action
Grasping Nosebleed Seats
Now that we’ve mastered idioms, we can return to nosebleed seats. According to HowStuffWorks, Nosebleeds happen at high altitudes because tiny blood vessels inside our nose burst when the atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes is lower than the one inside the body.
When someone uses this phrase, it means that the seats are not only high but also further from the stage, field, or court, so they tend to be cheaper. At this considerable distance, fans might have a hard time seeing their favorite artist or team.
The phrase Nosebleed seats is also a hyperbole, meaning an exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. Used in playfulness and humor, the phrase is sometimes shortened to just nosebleeds. It implies that those with nosebleed seating may experience the same physical effects of high altitude as mountain climbers.
The idiom carries a certain degree of ridicule, as it implies that those with the seats in question preferred the budget option when purchasing their tickets. Nevertheless, the panoramic view may allow someone with a nosebleed seat to enjoy the atmosphere of a concert or a sporting event more fully and without being crowded by others.
Origin of the Phrase
Somewhat to be expected, the phrase nosebleed seats, carrying the same meaning as today, started being used with regard to theaters in the 1940s. Back then, those seated in the balcony of a theater could be said to be “nose-bleeders” due to their elevation.
Decades later, sports fans started using the phrase as well, particularly in relation to American football. In 1953, an article in the Brooklyn Eagle used the phrase to refer to high-up seating in what is now the John F. Kennedy Stadium.
The use of nosebleed seats or nosebleed seating may have partly increased due to the fact that stadiums, particularly in the United States, started being built to accommodate larger and larger crowds. Their size and increased elevation prompted the popularity of the saying, cementing its usage to this day.
Other Uses
Interestingly, nosebleed seats is sometimes used to refer not to the seats in the back, which are therefore highest in terms of elevation, but to the front-row seats. Using the idiom in this form, however, is largely accepted as incorrect.
There is even a song titled The Nosebleed Section, released in 2003 by Australian hip-hop band Hilltop Hoods, referring to the front-row section. However, some fans claim that members of the band later admitted that they used the phrase incorrectly.
In the same vein, boxing fans may refer to nosebleed seats as front-row seats, given that the closeness might cause blood to be sprayed on them.
Music fans sometimes refer to the area in front of the stage as nosebleed seats, as joining the closely packed and often jubilant crowd in the pit, or mosh pit, may result in an elbow in the face.
To others, nosebleed seats might also mean front-row seating, particularly at a cinema. This is because leaning your head back to see the screen properly is akin to the position you take if you get a nosebleed.
Nevertheless, the generally accepted meaning of the idiom nosebleed seats is that it refers to high-up, inexpensive, back-row seating.
Using Nosebleed Seats in a Sentence
Here are some examples of how to use nosebleed seats in a sentence correctly:
- I could not see anything from that distance, I was in the nosebleed seats.
- We’re on a budget, so all we could afford were nosebleed seats.
- Nosebleed seats are not as bad as they say, especially since you don’t have to be tightly packed with other audience members.
- Johnny was gifted tickets to see his favorite band, but they were in the nosebleed seats.
- I was out of breath before I reached my nosebleed seat.
We have stacks of articles about idioms. Check out our chomping-at-the-bit explainer.
