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Complexion

literally means “what embraces or contains,” and the idea implies that the colour of the skin corresponds to the habit of body, and the habit of body answers to the element which predominates. If fire predominates, the person is bilious or full of bile; if air, he is sanguine or full of blood, if earth, the body is melancholic or full of black bile, if water, it is phlegʹmatic or full of phlegm. The first is hot and dry, the second hot and moist, the third cold and dry, and the last moist and cold like water.

“‘Tis ill, thoʹ different your complexious are [i.e. dispositions].”


Dryden.


“Cretans through mere complexion lie.”


Pitt: Hymn of Callimachus.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Common Prayer
Common Sense
Commoner
Commons
Commons in Gross
Commonwealths (Ideal)
Companion Ladder
Companions of Jehu
Comparisons are Odorous
Complementary Colours
Complexion
Compline
Compostella
Compte rendu
Comrade
Comrades
Comus
Comus’s Court
Con Amore (Italian)
Con Commodo (Italian)
Con Spirito (Italian)