sanguinary

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Involving bloodshed.

   • We may not propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences.
   • "[…] every one of which took its rise from some noble family that succeeded in grasping the purple after a sanguinary struggle."
2. 2

   Eager to shed blood

   Eager to shed blood; bloodthirsty.

   • Passion […] makes us brutal and sanguinary.
   • "The defence set up for Mahomet is equally availing for every sanguinary and revengeful tyrant; […]"
3. 3

   Consisting of, covered with, or similar in appearance to blood.

   • I was once, I remember, called to a patient who had received a violent contusion in his tibia, by which the exterior cutis was lacerated, so that there was a profuse sanguinary discharge […]
   • Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster—and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies […], that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence.
   • We reached the Point just as a flood of sunset light was dripping from the heavens, staining the lagoon an ominous, sanguinary hue.
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A bloodthirsty person.

   2. 5

      The plant common yarrow, or herba sanguinaria (Achillea millefolium).

The neighborhood

• neighborexsanguinate
• neighborsanguine
• neighborsanguineous