Ploafmaster General

Follow @ploafmaster on Micro.blog.

Neural Flatus: Body Words

A crop of Carter's Little Nerve Pills from Boston Public Library. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

It’s a twofer this morning. I had "lachrymose" and "sanguine" bumping around my noggin when I woke up earlier desired. But I already know the meaning of these words: lachrymose means tearful, from the Latin word for tear (the same root that gives us "lacrimal gland" or tear-producing glands). Sanguine, on the other hand, feels almost opposite in certain contexts. I tend to think of sanguine in its hopeful usage, but it’s referring to the flush, reddish color of blood (imagine the blood, or "color" draining from a hopeless face), and comes from the Latin for the same.

This got me thinking about other words derived from body parts that have emotional or behavioral meanings beyond their simple descriptive denotations. Take "bilious", for example, which may refer simply to the digestive fluid produced by the liver. More colloquially, however, a bilious person is considered to be thoroughly unlikeable (see also the similarly used "splenetic" and "dyspeptic").

The word nerd in me would LOVE to hear any other such body words. Share 'em if ya got 'em.