Word.ws English Dictionary

ichor

/ˈaɪkɔː/US/ˈaɪkɔɹ/

ichor noun: the liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods.

ichor: Abstract golden textured background with organic patterns
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Noun

ichor (countable and uncountable, plural ichors)

  1. (Greek) The liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods.
    • This ſaid, ſhe wip’d from Venus’ wounded Palm / The ſacred Ichor, and infus’d the Balm.1716, Homer, “Book V”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume II, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 40, lines 505–506
    • With his protruded ſpear her gentle hand / He wounded, piercing through her thin attire / Ambroſial, by themſelves the Graces wrought, / Her inſide wriſt, faſt by her roſy palm. / Blood follow'd, but immortal; ichor pure, / Such as the bleſt inhabitants of heav'n / May bleed, nectareous; […]1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book V.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 121...
  2. (broadly, poetic) The blood of human beings or animals; also (obsolete) the clear, fluid portion of blood; blood plasma, plasma.
    • He had merely meant to express his feeling that the streams which ran through their veins were not yet purified by time to that perfection, had not become so genuine an ichor, as to be worthy of being called blood in the genealogical sense.1857, Anthony Trollope, “The Thornes of Ullathorne”, in Barchester Towers. […], copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1859, →OCLC, page 266
  3. (broadly, figuratively, poetic) A blood-like fluid.
    • [I]chores and thoſe ſerious matters being thickned become flegme, and flegme degenerates into choler, choler aduſt becomes æruginoſa melancholia, as vinegar out of the pureſt wine putrified or by exhalation of purer ſpirits is ſo made, and becomes ſowre and ſharp; […]1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Of the Matter of Melancholy”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard...
    • Go bring him [an ant] home to his people. / Lay him in state on a sepal. / Wrap him for shroud in a petal. / Embalm him with ichor of nettle.1936, Robert Frost, “Departmental”, in The Poems of Robert Frost: […], New York, N.Y.: The Modern Library, published 1946, →OCLC, page 331
  4. (archaic, broadly) A fluid believed to seep out from magma and cause rock to turn into granite.
  5. (broadly, obsolete) A fetid, watery discharge from a sore; pus.
    Synonyms:
    sanies

ichor meaning in Tamil and Bengali

ichor in Tamil

புண்ஊநீர், புண்வடிநீர்

ichor in Bengali

গ্রিক পুরাণে দেবতাদের রক্ত

Examples of ichor in a sentence

  • He [Saint Peter] potter'd with his keys at a great rate, / And sweated through his apostolic skin: / Of course his perspiration was but ichor, / Or some such other spiritual liquor.1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd...
  • They will not live / As shades but angle forward to enjoy / The pluck of life, the pressure of their ichor.1988, Peter Porter, “They Come Back More”, in Quadrant, volume 32, Sydney, N.S.W.: Quadrant Magazine, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 29, column 2:
  • Like snow fall you cry a silent storm. / Your tears paint rivers on this oaken wall / Amber nectar / misery ichor.2002 August 13, “You Were But a Ghost in My Arms”, in John Haughm (lyrics), John Haughm, Don Anderson, and Jason William Walton (music)...

Synonyms of ichor

Forms of ichor

pluralichors

Origin of ichor

Sense 1 (“liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods”) is borrowed from Medieval Latin ichor, from Ancient Greek ῑ̓χώρ (īkhṓr, “fluid running through the veins of gods, ichor; watery part of blood, lymph, serum; watery part of milk, whey; gravy; pus; naphtha”); further etymology unknown, probably from Pre-Greek. Sense 2.4 (“fetid, watery discharge from a sore”) is from Middle English icor, icore [and other forms], from Medieval Latin ichor; see further above.

Words formed from ichor

Questions about ichor

What does ichor mean?
Ichor means the liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods.
What is ichor in Tamil?
Ichor in Tamil is புண்ஊநீர், புண்வடிநீர். See Ichor meaning in Tamil.
How do you use ichor in a sentence?
He [Saint Peter] potter'd with his keys at a great rate, / And sweated through his apostolic skin: / Of course his perspiration was but ichor, / Or some such other spiritual liquor.
What part of speech is ichor?
Ichor is a noun.
How do you pronounce ichor?
Ichor is pronounced /ˈaɪkɔː/ (UK).
What is the plural of ichor?
The plural of ichor is ichors.

Words near ichor in the dictionary

  1. ichnoviruses
  2. ichnusaite
  3. ichoglan
  4. ichoglans
  5. ichomage
  6. ichor
  7. ichorhaemia
  8. ichorhemia
  9. ichoroid
  10. ichorous
  11. ichorrhaemia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ichor (page history and authors); ichor (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ichor (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ichor.wav.

Cite this entry: “ichor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ichor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.