the.com/complexion
Your face's weather report, and once upon a time, your entire personality forecast.
means The natural color, texture, and appearance of your skin, especially on the face.
from From Latin 'complexio,' meaning a combination or combining — rooted in 'complectere,' to entwine or embrace. Medieval medicine borrowed it for the body's supposed blend of four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile), whose proportions were thought to determine both your skin tone and your temperament — which is why a 'sanguine complexion' once meant both a ruddy face and a cheerful disposition. Over time the word shed its personality-forecasting duties and settled on just the skin.
- old meaning
- once meant temperament, not just skin tone
- humor theory
- linked ruddy skin to excess blood, supposedly
- figurative use
- still means general character, as in political complexion
- skincare industry
- built an empire on this one word