Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Vocab: Humours

I think it is in VAHO001 that we have the word sanguine, and I remember discussing how the word sanguine originated from the Latin sanguis which means blood.

In some sessions I have also discussed how the ancient medical practitioners believed that a healthy body had a balance of four humours (essential fluids) which gave an indication of someone’s temperament. An imbalance of humours was thought to cause a change in temperament.

Those humours were blood, bile (choler), black bile, and phlegm. Each humour was associated with a season and an element (air, water, fire, and earth). While we no longer use this theory to treat people these terms continue to be used in the English language.

Choleric:
Easily irritated or angered; hot-tempered.
Etymology:
From the Greek chole (bile).

Phlegmatic:
Having a sluggish temperament; apathetic.
Calm or composed.
Etymology:
From the Greek Phlegm (inflammation, the humour phlegm supposedly as a result of heat)

Melancholic:
Gloomy; wistful.
Saddening.
Of or related to melancholia.
Etymology:
From the Greek melancholia (the condition of having an excess of black bile)

Bilious:
Extremely unpleasant.
Ill-natured; irritable.
Relating to bile.
Etymology:
From the Latin bilis (bile).

Sanguine:
Cheerfully optimistic or confident.
Having a healthy reddish color.
Blood-red.
Etymology:
From the Latin sanguis (blood).

On that bloody … oops, I meant cheerful note,

Ciao

2 comments:

  1. Yeah I had sat that handout lecture just last Sunday & I came across the word "consanguinity" in a novel yesterday, which means having a blood relation or close affinity..It was only after I looked up the meaning in a dictionary when it suddenly struck me "Ohh of course sanguine=blood.."..:))

    So we have another word.

    Consanguinity: having blood relation, descending from the same ancestor.

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  2. is there a difference in the demeanor of the choleric and the bilious?since both of them have their etymological reference to bile.Also I thought there were just four classical temperaments.

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