Definition of "black-and-blue" []

• Discolored from coagulation of blood below the surface of the skin. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He lifted my right arm, and I saw the black-and-blue marks."
• "She moaned at the sight of the fading black-and-blue marks and mumbled, Poor child."
• "Sometimes the women were there, and so was a kind of distress you didn't understand and didn't particularly want but couldn't resist -- like a black-and-blue mark you can't help pressing, I used to think."