(Greek > Latin: a suffix that is used to form hundreds of words that mean: similar to, resembling, like, characterized by, or of the nature of)
This element is also utilized to form abstract nouns; feminine common nouns; and it is used in chemistry to form names of alkaloids and bases or names of elements.
2. A soft suede leather formerly from the sheep of the chamois antelope but now from sheepskin.
3. Also chammy or shammy: a soft pliant leather prepared from the skin of the chamois or from sheepskin.
4. A cotton fabric made in imitation of chamois leather.
5. Etymology: from Middle French, from Late Latin camox; a small goatlike bovid (Rupicapra rupicapra) of mountainous regions from southern Europe to the Caucasus.
2. Characteristic of sugar; sugary.
3. Composed chiefly of sugar; of a plant, containing a large proportion of sugar.
4. With reference to urine, containing sugar in excess of what is normal.
2. Any of various small-lizardlike amphibians of the order Caudata, having porous scaleless skin and four rudimentary legs.
3. A mythical creature, generally resembling a lizard, believed capable of living in or withstanding fire; so, being able to resist fire, or to live in it.
2. Containing or impregnated with salt.
3. In biology, a reference to plants and animals that grow in or inhabit salt plains or marshes.
4. Composed of or like salt.
5. In medicine, a sterile solution of sodium chloride used to dilute medications or for intravenous therapy.
Although many dictionaries indicate that sanguine means "bloody", since it is derived from a Latin origin meaning "bloody" or "full of blood", it is now rare that anyone uses it in that sense any more.2. Of or pertaining to the red fluid that flows in the body: Sharon was told that her sanguine complexion meant that she had a healthy supply of blood flowing through her veins.
For more historical background information about sanguine, see the article at the bottom of this page.
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The similarity in form between sanguine, "cheerfully optimistic", and sanguinary, "bloodthirsty", may prompt people to wonder how these words have resulted in such different meanings.
The explanation lies in medieval physiology with its notion of the four humors or bodily fluids (blood, bile, phlegm, and black bile). The relative proportions of these fluids was thought to determine a person's temperament.
If blood was the predominant humor, then that person had "a ruddy face and a disposition marked by courage, hope, and a readiness to fall in love".
Such a temperament was called sanguine, the Middle English ancestor of the modern word sanguine. The source of the Middle English word was Old French sanguin, itself from Latin sanguineus.
Both the Old French and Latin words meant "bloody, blood-colored". Latin sanguineus was in turn derived from sanguis, "blood", just as the English "sanguinary" is.
The English adjective sanguine, was first recorded in Middle English before 1350, and it continues to refer to the "cheerfulness" and "optimism" that accompanied a sanguine temperament but it no longer has any direct reference to medieval physiology.
2. Of, belonging to, or resembling the Sciuridae, a family of rodents that includes the squirrels and related mammals.