September 30, 2008
Sanguine:
adjective
1. cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.
2. reddish; ruddy: a sanguine complexion.
3. (in old physiology) having blood as the predominating humor and consequently being ruddy-faced, cheerful, etc.
4. bloody; sanguinary.
5. blood-red; red.
6. Heraldry. a reddish-purple tincture.
noun
7. a red iron-oxide crayon used in making drawings.
"Would you be so sanguine, Mia, if your child was borne wawy across one of those saddles, shrieking for you and holding out his arms?"
From: The Dark Tower, Book VI, Song of Susannah
Word History: The similarity in form between sanguine, "cheerfully optimistic," and sanguinary, "bloodthirsty," may prompt one to wonder how they have come to have 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, 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, the Middle English ancestor of our 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," Old French sanguin having the sense "sanguine in temperament" as well. Latin sanguineus was in turn derived from sanguis, "blood," just as English sanguinary is. The English adjective sanguine, first recorded in Middle English before 1350, continues to refer to the cheerfulness and optimism that accompanied a sanguine temperament but no longer has any direct reference to medieval physiology.
dictionary.reference.com/browse/sanguine
September 28, 2008
Pellucid: Admitting the passage of light; transparent or translucent. Transparently clear in style or meaning.
The skiff moved as quietly and as gracefully over the water as any motor-powered thing can, skating on its own reflection beneath a sky of summer's most pellucid blue.
From: The Dark Tower VI, Song of Susannah
