# sanguine

Pronunciation: say "SANG-gwin" /ˈsæŋ.ɡwɪn/

## Adjective

1. Expecting the best; hopeful and confident about how things will turn out.
   - Simple: Feeling hopeful and sure that things will go well.
   - _Investors remain sanguine about the company's prospects despite a weak quarter._
   - _Few economists share the minister's sanguine forecast of strong growth next year._
2. In old medicine, having plenty of actively flowing blood, with blood the main bodily humor, thought to give a ruddy face and a warm, cheerful temperament.
   - Simple: In old medicine, having lots of blood, which was thought to give red cheeks and a cheerful, lively nature.
   - _Medieval doctors thought a sanguine man had blood to spare, which gave him rosy cheeks and a merry, easygoing temper._
   - _Old physicians judged him sanguine, ruddy in the face, warm in manner and quick to laugh._
3. Warm and ardent in feeling or temperament.
   - Simple: Full of warm, strong feeling.
4. Of the red color of blood. *(literary)*
   - Simple: Having the same red color as blood.
   - _A sanguine glow spread across the western hills as the battle ended._
   - _The rose's sanguine petals looked almost black in the dim light._

## Noun

5. Red chalk, a reddish-brown drawing chalk made from red ochre, or a drawing made with it.
   - Simple: A reddish-brown chalk used for drawing, or a picture drawn with it.
   - _The old master's study of a hand, drawn in sanguine, sold at auction last week._
   - _He switched from charcoal to sanguine to warm up the skin tones in his sketch._
7. The deep red color of blood.
   - Simple: A deep red color like blood.
   - _Autumn turned the maples to sanguine almost overnight._
   - _The designer chose a muted sanguine for the theater's velvet seats._

## Adjective

6. Full of or covered with blood. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Covered in blood or full of blood.
8. Eager to shed blood or to see it shed. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Eager to kill and to see blood spilled.

## Other meanings

- (noun) In heraldry, a blood-red tincture that is seldom used and is distinct from murrey.
- (verb) To stain with blood, or to give something the color of blood.
- (noun) The stone known as bloodstone.

## Origin

Latin sanguis ("blood") is of uncertain origin, though it probably traces back to a Proto-Indo-European word for blood. It gave rise to Latin sanguineus ("of blood"), which passed through Old French sanguin and Middle English sanguine into modern English, making the word a doublet of sanguineous. In the humor theory of Hippocrates and Galen, an abundance of blood was thought to produce a cheerful, confident nature, giving rise to the modern sense of hopeful.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/sanguine (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).