phlegmatic

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Not easily excited to action or passion; calm; sluggish.

   Calm and phlegmatic, with a clear eye, Mr. Fogg seemed a perfect type of that English composure which Angelica Kauffmann has so skilfully represented on canvas.

2. 2
   adj

   Generating, causing, or full of phlegm.

   Cold and phlegmatic bodies.

From Middle English fleumatik, flewmatik, flematik, fleumatyke, flewmatyk, from Old French fleumatique, from Latin phlegmaticus, from Ancient Greek φλεγματικός (phlegmatikós), from φλέγμα (phlégma), referring to the humour which ancient Hippocratic and later Galenic medicine associated with mildness, coldness, sluggishness, and indifference. Spelling later altered to resemble the word's Latin and Greek roots, with modern pronunciation following this new spelling.

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