Question: I was reading a book and I saw the word "stains" in a sentence. Here is the sentence: 

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> Out of the shed came a long, low, yellow-and-brown animal. There were red, wet *stains* around its mouth and neck.
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Source: ["Tooth and Claw"](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1). 

I looked up the defintion of it but I can't decide which one is used in this sentence. Here are the definitions:

1. a discoloration produced by foreign matter having penetrated into or chemically reacted with a material; a spot not easily removed.
2. a natural spot or patch of color different from that of the basic color, as on the body of an animal.
3. a cause of reproach; stigma; blemish:

Which one could it be?

Thanks

Answer: 
The story is [here](http://www.okread.info/read.php?ys=1&d=sc/ychzz/005&ch=1). It is strongly implied that the aunt was killed or horribly wounded by the ferret. So the "red, wet stains around its mouth and neck" are stains of the blood of the aunt. So they are indeed "blood stains." 

In this sense, definition 1 works, since the foreign matter is the aunt's blood. However, the blood has probably not had time to "penetrate into" into the ferret's skin or fur. Some dictionaries have better definitions than others, and many times they give overlapping or even redundant definitions.
The description of the stains as "wet" indicates that this is something like meaning 1; but it is not literally that definition, because this is not a discolouration that has become embedded permanently into some material, but some coloured matter that is visible on the surface. Since the matter is clearly blood, there is a hint of meaning 3 here as well. 

This use does not correspond precisely to any of the definitions, even in the Oxford English Dictionary - it is somewhat allusive, a bit of a metaphor.