The noun θρόμβος literally means a lump or clot, used in medical texts for blood clots and in agricultural contexts for curds of milk or coarse salt. The diminutive-like sense of "drop" emerged for large, heavy drops that fall in clots rather than fine mist. Luke's Gospel uses the plural to describe Jesus's sweat in Gethsemane falling "like great drops of blood" (Luke 22:44)—the comparison suggests not color but the large, heavy nature of the perspiration. Across languages, translations render it as "drops" (Spanish "gotas," French "goutte"), though the underlying image is of thick, clot-like drops rather than fine droplets.