sanguisuga

• sanguisuca, sanguesuga, sanguesuca, sanguisciuga (archaic, dialectal)
• sanguisuccia (archaic, Tuscan)

Inherited from Latin sanguisūga. Cognate with Sicilian sancusuca.

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

sanguisuga f (plural sanguisughe)

1. leech

• mignatta

• sanguisugio

• sanguī̆ssūga

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

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

sanguī̆sūga f (genitive sanguī̆sūgae); first declension

1. a leech

   Synonym: hirūdō

   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Proverbs.30.15:

     sanguī̆sūgae 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, 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.