exsanguinate
/ɛkˈsæŋɡwɪneɪt/
"exsanguinate" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“exsanguinate” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To drain (a living or dead body, or (medicine, surgery) a body part) of blood.
Corpus desk
Index EN-exsanguinate · exsanguinate · English
exsanguinate · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | exsanguinate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɛkˈsæŋɡwɪneɪt/ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “exsanguinate” in English
Rare enough to double-check
exsanguinate is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed /ɛkˈsæŋɡwɪneɪt/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for exsanguinate in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: PIE word *h₁ésh₂r̥ Learned borrowing from New Latin exsanguinātus (“depleted of blood, exsanguinated; lacking blood, bloodless”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Exsanguinātus is a participial adjective formed on ex- (“out, from”) + sanguī̆s (sanguin-) (“b… The correct English form is exsanguinate, spelled E-X-S-A-N-G-U-I-N-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To drain (a living or dead body, or (medicine, surgery) a body part) of blood.
- 2To kill (a person or animal) by means of blood loss.
- 3To bleed profusely; also, to die by means of blood loss.
- 4To cause blood to drain from a body or body part, or profuse bleeding.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how exsanguinate appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The substance of the brain was not congested but, on the contrary, exsanguinated.
At the battle of Ball's Bluff, I saw a soldier having a shot flesh-wound of the left arm, who was much weakened and exsanguinated from a venous hemorrhage that was caused by applying an improvised tourniquet above the wound (it was done by a comrade), and was readily stopped on removing the cause.
Etymology
PIE word *h₁ésh₂r̥ Learned borrowing from New Latin exsanguinātus (“depleted of blood, exsanguinated; lacking blood, bloodless”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Exsanguinātus is a participial adjective formed on ex- (“out, from”) + sanguī̆s (sanguin-) (“blood”) + -ātus.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.