sanguinary

comparative more sanguinary · superlative most sanguinary

1. Involving bloodshed.

   We may not propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force consciences.

   1625, Francis Bacon, "Unity in Religion" (Google preview)

   3 more examples

   "[…] every one of which took its rise from some noble family that succeeded in grasping the purple after a sanguinary struggle."

   1887, H[enry] Rider Haggard, chapter XIII, in Allan Quatermain […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC

   It is the proof that his kinsfolk have exacted a pecuniary, though not sanguinary, compensation for his murder.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 92

   It was not merely distaste for court life at Ch’ang An that urged the emperor to make war upon this country. China had substantial grievances against the peninsula kingdom. In the year a.d. 642 P’ing Jang, the Korean capital, had been convulsed by a revolution more sanguinary and more successful than that which had menaced the Chinese court.

   1933, “The Korean War and the Closing Years a.d. 645–50”, in Son of Heaven: A Biography of Li Shih-Min, founder of the T’ang Dynasty, Cambridge University Press, published 1971, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 187

   Synonyms: bloody, gory

2. Eager to shed blood; bloodthirsty.

   Passion […] makes us brutal and sanguinary.

   c. 1730, William Broome

   1 more example

   "The defence set up for Mahomet is equally availing for every sanguinary and revengeful tyrant; […]"

   1877, Samuel Green, The Life of Mahomet: Founder of the Religion of Islamism and of the Empire of the Saracens with Notices of the History of Islamism and of Arabia, page 126

   Synonyms: bloodthirsty, bloody-minded, butcherous, slaughterous

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

   We reached the Point just as a flood of sunset light was dripping from the heavens, staining the lagoon an ominous, sanguinary hue.

   1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 117

   2 more examples

   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 […]

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC

   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.

   1913, H. G. Wells, Little Wars, Section VI

   Synonyms: bloodsoaked, bloody, gory

plural sanguinaries

1. A bloodthirsty person.
2. The plant common yarrow, or herba sanguinaria (Achillea millefolium).