Vocab: petrichor

Train parked sunset midwest

Learned a new word from PCT hiker and lovely writer Carrot for a wonderful concept to have a word for…the word is petrichor, meaning the scent that follows a rainfall. Apparently, it’s not just the moisture we smell, but other complex scents from the soil and plants, caused/triggered by the moisture.

Anyway, rain in the afternoon and evening. But we’ve had so much that I didn’t get much of a hit of petrichor.

The “ichor” part of petrichor is the Greek word for the special fluid that is the blood of the deities.

Note: make a donation to Wikipedia, if you haven’t recently, and acknowledge how often you use it….

One comment

  1. Pam J. says:

    I adore this word! Thanks for blogging about it. Here in the Washington, DC, area we had major petrichor last night. Too bad it came with unbearably high humidity.