sanguisuga

Borrowed from Latin sanguisūga. Cognate with Sicilian sancu-suca.

• IPA^(key): /san.ɡwiˈsu.ɡa/^[1]
• Rhymes: -uɡa
• Hyphenation: san‧gui‧sù‧ga

sanguisuga f (plural sanguisughe)

1. leech

• mignatta

• sanguisugio

Literally, “a bloodsucker”, from sanguis (“blood”) +‎ sūgō (“suck”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [saŋ.ɡʷɪˈsuː.ɡa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [saŋ.ɡʷiˈs̬uː.ɡa]

sanguisūga f (genitive sanguisūgae); first declension

1. a leech

   Synonym: hirūdō

   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Proverbs.30.15:

     sanguisūgae duae sunt fīliae dīcentēs adfer adfer

     The horseleech hath two daughters that say: Bring, bring. (Douay-Rheims trans., Challoner rev.; 1752 CE)

2. a vampire, an undead being which harms people and is implied to consume blood
   • 1610, William di Newburgh, Guillelmi Neubrigensis Angli, ... De rebus Anglicis suis temporis, libri quinque. Nunc primum auctiores 11. capitulis hactenus desideratis, & notis Ioannis Picardi Bellouaci ..., page 650:

     nec terrorem [alt.: territi] iuuenes, quos ira stimulabat, exanimo corpore retulerunt [alt.: vulnus exanimi corpori intulerunt]: ex quo tantus continuò sanguis effluxit, vt intelligeretur sanguisuga fuisse multorum.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

First-declension noun.

• “sanguisuga”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "sanguisuga", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• sanguisuga in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.