Sanguine?

M

Mead

Member
So i have had this question for a long time. If any of you are interested in philology or perchance are philologists, please help me.

Sanguine, in the English dictionary, means:

cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.

However, in Italian, and I'm sure all romance languages, sague, the root of sanguine, means blood.

How the F does blood = cheerfully optimistic?

Please enlighten me.
 
enlightenment is yours

enlightenment.jpg

 
Haha dammit, I should've dug a bit more before posting...found it

(in old physiology) having blood as the predominating humor and consequently being ruddy-faced, cheerful, etc.
 
when one is full of blood, healthy blood, it's a euphemism for cheerfulness. Hard to explain, so I know where you are coming from, but I learned this shit in British Lit senior year of highschool. Shakespeare uses a lot of blood imagery in that capacity.
 
cause the english language is a germanic language and therefore doesnt stem from latin like i-talian so you dont always have similarities
 
Delphi and Mead have it right. It goes back to Hippocrates and the four humours, if you know what those are.
 
maybe they made it that way so that there would be a stunning contrast for emo girls.



"sweet sweet sanguine" happiness or blood... hmmmmm
 
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