sanguine
Syllables: san·guine/ˈsæŋ.ɡwɪn/
sanguine adjective: having the colour of blood; blood red.
Adjective
sanguine (comparative more sanguine, superlative most sanguine)
- Having the colour of blood; blood red.
- Synonyms:
- incarnadine
- 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.
- What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- I'll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this
bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.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...
- Synonyms:
- debaucherous, sybaritic
- 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.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
- Warm; ardent.
- a sanguine temper
- Anticipating the best; optimistic; confident; full of hope.
- 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...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
- Synonyms:
- assured, bright, bullish, cheerful, cheery, confident, hopeful, optimistic, positive, ridibund
- Antonyms:
- blue, despondent, gloomy, pessimistic
- Full of blood; bloody.
- Synonyms:
- bloodied, gory, sanguinolent
- Bloodthirsty.
- Synonyms:
- bloodlusty, homicidal, murderous
Noun
sanguine (countable and uncountable, plural sanguines)
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.
sanguine meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
sanguine in Hindi
- having the colour of blood; red
- रक्ताभ raktābh
sanguine in Tamil
- எதிர்கால நம்பிக்கையுடைமை
sanguine in Urdu
- خونی, لال, سرخ
sanguine in Bengali
- ভবিষ্যৎ সম্পর্কে আশাবাদী, আত্মবিশ্বাসী
More languagesFewer languages
- sanguine in Malayalam
- പ്രത്യാശാഭരിതമായ, ശുഭാപ്തിവിശ്വാസമുള്ള, പ്രത്യാശയുള്ള, അമിതമായ ആത്മവിശ്വാസമുള്ള
- sanguine in Indonesian
- merah darah
Examples of sanguine in a sentence
- Gwynne was not very sanguine as to the effects of his journey to Barchester, and not over anxious to interfere with the bishop.1857, Anthony Trollope, “The Master and Tutor of Lazarus”, in Barchester Towers. […], copyright edition, volume II, Leipzig: Bernhard...
- 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.2022 February 2, Charlotte Cowles, “Can ‘Body Neutrality’ Change the Way You Work Out?”, in The New York Times:
Synonyms of sanguine
13 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of sanguine
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more sanguine |
| superlative | most sanguine |
| Noun | |
| plural | sanguines |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | sanguines |
| present participle | sanguining |
| past participle | sanguined |
| past | sanguined |
Origin of sanguine
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.
Words formed from sanguine
Words that rhyme with sanguine
Questions about sanguine
- What does sanguine mean?
- Sanguine means having the colour of blood; blood red.
- What is sanguine in Hindi?
- Sanguine in Hindi is रक्ताभ (raktābh). See Sanguine meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use sanguine in a sentence?
- Gwynne was not very sanguine as to the effects of his journey to Barchester, and not over anxious to interfere with the bishop.
- What part of speech is sanguine?
- Sanguine can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce sanguine?
- Sanguine is pronounced /ˈsæŋ.ɡwɪn/.
Words near sanguine in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sanguine (page history and authors); sanguine (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sanguine (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sanguine (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sanguine (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sanguine.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sanguine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sanguine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.