Word of the Day:
ichor
What It Means
The liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods.
The blood of human beings or animals; also (obsolete) the clear, fluid portion of blood; blood plasma, plasma.
A blood-like fluid.
Ichor in Context
“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.”
Did You Know?
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.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ichor (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “ichor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ichor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.