SANGUINE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sanguine mean? 

• SANGUINE (noun)
  The noun SANGUINE has 1 sense:

1. a blood-red color

  Familiarity information: SANGUINE used as a noun is very rare.

• SANGUINE (adjective)
  The adjective SANGUINE has 2 senses:

1. confidently optimistic and cheerful

2. inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life

  Familiarity information: SANGUINE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SANGUINE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A blood-red color

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("sanguine" is a kind of...):

red; redness (red color or pigment; the chromatic color resembling the hue of blood)

Derivation:

sanguineous (accompanied by bloodshed)

• SANGUINE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Confidently optimistic and cheerful

Synonyms:

sanguine; sanguineous

Similar:

optimistic (expecting the best in this best of all possible worlds)

Derivation:

sanguineness; sanguinity (feeling sanguine; optimistically cheerful and confident)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life

Synonyms:

florid; rubicund; ruddy; sanguine

Context example:

a fresh and sanguine complexion

Similar:

healthy (having or indicating good health in body or mind; free from infirmity or disease)

 Context examples 

To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made him equally sanguine.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I cannot be so sanguine as Mr. Weston.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Miss Mills accepted this trust, too; but was not sanguine.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then, of course, she might give us very important information, but I was not sanguine that she would.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All his sanguine expectations, all his confidence had been justified.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

General Tilney was not less sanguine, having already waited on her excellent friends in Pulteney Street, and obtained their sanction of his wishes.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

On her father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than she had been prepared for.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the —shire might be able to give more information; and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)