Sanguisuge
/ˈsæŋ.ɡwɪ.sjuːdʒ/noun
A bloodsucking leech.
Did you know?Sanguisuge entered English through Medieval Latin and French as a learned term for a leech, built from Latin sanguis (“blood”) + sugere (“to suck”), a brutally literal name for a parasite.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*h₁esh₂en- / *sengʷʰ-
“Ancient roots associated with blood and sucking, ultimately underlying the Latin blood word and the verb for sucking.”
Latin
Latin
sanguis
“blood”
Latin
Latin
sugere
“to suck”
Late Latin / Medieval Latin
Latin
sanguisuga
“a leech; literally a blood-sucker”
Old French
Old French
sanguisue
“a leech”
Middle English
English
sanguisuge
“a leech, especially a bloodsucking one”
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