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''sanguine'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

sanguine - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

sanguine (comparative more sanguine, superlative most sanguine)

  • (literary) Having the colour of blood; blood red. [from late 14th c.]
    • ✤ Synonym: incarnadine
  • (obsolete, physiology) Having a bodily constitution characterised by a preponderance of blood over the other bodily humours, thought to be marked by irresponsible mirth; indulgent in pleasure to the exclusion of important matters.
    • ✤ Synonyms: debaucherous, sybaritic
    • ✤ What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!1
    • ✤ I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this
      bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.      2
  • Characterized by abundance and active circulation of blood.
    • ✤ a sanguine bodily temperament
    • ✤ Eleonore Lemindre, aged 34, tailoress, of a sanguine lymphatic temperament, having suffered great depression of spirits, experienced, in the course of 1820, symptoms of what is called disease of the heart.3
  • Warm; ardent.
    • ✤ Synonyms: animated, buoyant, spirited
    • ✤ a sanguine temper
  • Anticipating the best; optimistic; confident; full of hope. [from early 16th c.]
    • ✤ Synonyms: assured, bright, bullish, cheerful, cheery, confident, hopeful, optimistic, positive, ridibund, upbeat
    • ✤ Antonyms: blue, despondent, gloomy, pessimistic
    • ✤ I’m sanguine about the eventual success of the project.
    • ✤ Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed—much more disappointed, in fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.4
    • ✤ It was clear that Dr. Gwynne was not very sanguine as to the effects of his journey to Barchester, and not over anxious to interfere with the bishop.5
    • ✤ When the railway was opened on August 2, 1897, it was expected that Cruden Bay, on the Aberdeenshire coast, would develop into a popular holiday resort, but this sanguine forecast was never fully realised.6
    • ✤ The plan was not feasible, for making a ninety-degree turn would have been impossible without nickel-alloy swivels inserted in the small of every man’s back, and Lieutenant Scheisskopf was not sanguine at all about obtaining that many nickel-alloy swivels from Quartermaster or enlisting the cooperation of the surgeons at the hospital.7
    • ✤ Maybe it was hormones, or the immersion of parenting a newborn, or a new appreciation for what my body could do, but I felt surprisingly sanguine about my wobbly physical state.8
  • (archaic) Full of blood; bloody.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bloodied, gory, sanguinolent
  • (archaic) Bloodthirsty.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bloodlusty, homicidal, murderous

Noun

sanguine (countable and uncountable, plural sanguines)

  • Blood colour; red.
    • ✤ sanguine:
  • Anything of a blood -red colour, as cloth.
  • (heraldry) A tincture, seldom used, of a blood-red colour (not to be confused with murrey).
  • Bloodstone.
  • Red crayon.

Verb

sanguine (third-person singular simple present sanguines, present participle sanguining, simple past and past participle sanguined)

  • To stain with blood; to impart the colour of blood to; to ensanguine.

Etymology

From Middle English sanguine, from Old French sanguin, ultimately from Latin sanguineus (“of blood”), from sanguis (“blood”) (of uncertain origin, but probably from Proto-Indo-European ﹡h₁sh₂-én-, from ﹡h₁ésh₂r̥ (“blood”), with an obscure suffix such as ﹡-ǵʰ- (related to body parts)) +‎ -inus +‎ -eus. The obsolete medical sense is in reference to the humour (blood) which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with cheerfulness, optimism, confidence, liveliness, and spiritedness. Doublet of sanguineous.

Pronunciation

  • (without æ-raising) IPA: /ˈsæŋ.ɡwɪn/
    • (æ-raising) IPA: /ˈseɪ̯ŋ.ɡwɪn/
      • Audio (California): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -æŋɡwɪn
  • Hyphenation: san‧guine

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]: ↩

  2. c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]: ↩

  3. 1833, R. J. Bertin, translated by Charles W. Chauncy, Treatise on the Diseases of the Heart, and Great Vessels, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blnachard, page 188: ↩

  4. 1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XVIII, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC, pages 306–307: ↩

  5. 1857, Anthony Trollope, “The Master and Tutor of Lazarus”, in Barchester Towers. […], copyright edition, volume II, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1859, →OCLC, page 101: ↩

  6. 1949 May and June, “Notes and News: Closing of Boddam Branch”, in Railway Magazine, page 203: ↩

  7. 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “McWatt”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page page: ↩

  8. 2022 February 2, Charlotte Cowles, “Can ‘Body Neutrality’ Change the Way You Work Out?”, in The New York Times: ↩

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