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My wife was working on her lines for a play (Dracula) set in the early 1900s and one line caught my eye. It referred to the desanguination of the vampire’s victims. I’d always heard the term as exsanguination and never heard of desangination. A few quick Google searches seem to indicate that desanguination is perhaps more archaic.

The questions are these:

  1. Is desanguination considered archaic? For how long? Which word would have most likely been used by a doctor (the character in the play) circa 1900?

  2. Are there any subtle differences in meaning between the two? If so, which seems more relevant to the results of a vampire attack?

How’s that for a topical question on Halloween week?

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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

As your google search probably indicated, desanguination is used very, very rarely. Perhaps more strikingly, the OED doesn’t have a single reference to it, which suggests that it isn’t being used much historically, either. By contrast, the OED gives several citations for the word exsanguinate in the mid-1800s, so the word was certainly in use by 1900.

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Could the difference be that, if one exsanguinates, their blood flows out of their body as a result of a wound; if one is a victim of desanguination, their blood is drawn out of their body and sucked in by another (the vampire)?

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I thought I was the one asking the question. –  JohnFx Oct 25 '10 at 17:54
This would be my thought, too: just based on the usual uses of "de-" vs. "ex-", the former implies an outside agent, while the latter does not. Or to put it another way, exsanguination us something that happens to a person, while desanguination is something that is done to a person. –  Marthaª Oct 25 '10 at 18:17
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Exsanguination is commonly used in the Emergency Medical field.

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