sanguigno

Forms

sanguigno (feminine sanguigna, masculine plural sanguigni, feminine plural sanguigne)^[1] Older and dialect forms include Old Italian sanguignio and Old Italian sanguinio.^[2] A Sienese form Old Italian sanguegno is recorded in the 15th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sanguineus (“blood-coloured, of blood”), the adjective of sanguis (“blood”).^[4][5][6][1] Latin formed it from the stem of the noun with the suffix -eus.^[7][1] Devoto starts from Vulgar Latin *sanguinjus.^[8] Sabatini–Coletti calls it the word of popular tradition beside the learned sanguineo, taken from the same Latin adjective.^[9] Wiktionary treats the two as doublets.^[1]

Outside Italy the Latin adjective lives on mostly in plant names: Sardinian sambingiu (“spindle tree”) in Logudorese Sardinian, Spanish sangüeño, and Portuguese sanguinho (“dogwood”).^[10][11]

For the Latin noun de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *sangwen-.^[12] He takes its first part to be the oblique stem of the Proto-Indo-European word for blood, Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésh₂r̥, while the origin of the second part is less certain.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in a Pistoian account book of 1240–1246, uses the word for the colour of blood.^[4] DEI and Sabatini–Coletti also note an early noun sanguigno for a blood-red cloth.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

Dante used the adjective as a noun for the colour itself: “noi che tignemmo il mondo di sanguigno” (“we who stained the world blood-red”).^[4][13] In the old medicine of humours a complessione sanguigna was a constitution with plenty of blood, listed by Francesco da Buti beside the choleric and phlegmatic ones.^[4][14] From this sense come the modern figurative uses for a hot-blooded, passionate or quick-tempered person, and the noun un sanguigno.^[13][15]

The plain relational sense “of the blood” is recorded later, in Marsilio Ficino in 1499.^[4] It is now the most common use, in physiological phrases such as vasi sanguigni, pressione sanguigna and gruppo sanguigno.^[6][16] Poets used the word for things stained with blood and for bloody battles: Petrarch's Caesar “fece l'erbe sanguigne” (“made the grass bloody”), and Tasso wrote of la sanguigna vittoria.^[6][13] The red-fleshed oranges grown in Sicily and southern Italy are arance sanguigne, and diaspro sanguigno is a red jasper.^[13][17]

Saint Bernardino in 1427, like Davanzati, used the word for “bloodthirsty”, a sense now carried by sanguinario.^[11]

Timeline

• 1240–1246 – A Pistoian account book uses sanguigno for the colour of blood.^[4]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses sanguigno as a noun for the colour of blood.^[4]
• Before 1406 – Francesco da Buti uses it of a constitution rich in blood.^[4]
• 1427 – Saint Bernardino uses it for “bloodthirsty”.^[11]
• 1499 – Marsilio Ficino uses it in the sense “of the blood”.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (physiology) Of or relating to the blood: Il medico controlla la pressione sanguigna.^[6][17][9]
2. (medicine) Containing or mixed with blood: un catarro sanguigno.^[6][17]
3. (medicine) Rich in blood, of a plethoric build or constitution.^[17][13]
4. (figurative) Impetuous, passionate, quick-tempered; hot-blooded: Ha un carattere sanguigno e si accende per nulla.^[6][9][18]
5. Blood-red in colour; of oranges, with dark red flesh: rosso sanguigno, arance sanguigne.^[6][13]
6. (literary) Stained with blood; bloody, costing many lives.^[6][17]

Noun

1. (archaic, literary) The colour of blood.^[6][17][18]
2. A hot-blooded or sanguine person.^[15][19]

Word family

• sanguigna
• sanguignamente

Related words

• sangue
• sanguineo
• sanguinario
• Latin sanguineus

Usage notes

Common phrases include gruppo sanguigno (blood group), pressione sanguigna (blood pressure), vaso sanguigno (blood vessel) and temperamento sanguigno.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 17
3. ^ a b Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3332
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 385
9. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3331
12. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
14. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
15. ^ a b Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
16. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
17. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
18. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
19. ^ Wikizionario (Italian Wiktionary), it.wiktionary.org