Sanguifying

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Converting food or matter into blood, or staining something with blood in the process of making it bloody
2. Making something bloody or transforming material into blood, as in the body's process of producing red fluid
3. Rendering a thing bloody or turning matter into blood, a rare term drawn from older medical and literary usage

Etymology: The Latin "sanguis" meant "blood," and English has built a small family of words on it, including "sanguine," meaning hopeful or cheerful but originally tied to the blood's supposed role in temperament. "Sanguify" belongs to a more technical branch: it takes the same root and adds the English suffix "-fy," which turns a noun or adjective into a verb meaning "to make into" something. To sanguify is therefore to make something into blood, or to make it bloody. The French "sanguifier" shows the same construction, so the coinage is a shared Romance pattern rather than a purely English invention. The verb's two senses come from the two ways the process can be imagined. In physiology it describes the body turning food into blood, while the looser sense describes staining a surface until it looks gory.

Synonyms: bloodying, reddening