DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

sanguine / SANG-gwin / adjective: 1. Cheerfully optimistic or confident. 2. Having a healthy reddish color. 3. Blood-red.

Notes & Etymology: From the Old French sanguin, from Latin sanguineus (bloody), from sanguis (blood). 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, one had a ruddy face and a disposition marked by courage, hope, and a readiness to fall in love. Such a temperament was called sanguine

Usage: “His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; The Parasite; 1894