Sunday Word: Ichor

[sallymn]

ichor [ahy-kawr, ahy-ker]

noun:
1 (Classical mythology) an ethereal fluid believed to supply the place of blood in the veins of the gods
2 an acrid, watery discharge, as from an ulcer or wound
3 (literary) any bloodlike fluid

Examples:

On my way home the blood coursed through my veins like an immortal ichor of the gods, full of sweet and inextinguishable fire. (John Munro, A Trip to Venus)

The thing that lay half-bent on its side in a foetid pool of greenish-yellow ichor and tarry stickiness was almost nine feet tall, and the dog had torn off all the clothing and some of the skin. (H P LOvecraft, The Dunwich Horror)

He reached beneath his tattered greatcoat and drew forth a cutlass that dripped with black ichor. (J Robert King, Guild Wars: Edge of Destiny)

And then comes the final test, the infallible touchstone of the seventh-rate: Ichor. It oozes out of severed tentacles, it beslimes tessellated pavements, bespatters bejeweled courtiers, and bores the bejesus out of everybody. (Ursula le Guin, 'From Elfland to Poughkeepsie')

Because my father has the ichor of capitalism flowing in his veins....For hundreds of years to be [a member of his family] has been to be a merchant, and to be a merchant is to make money. (Donna Leon, About Face)

Origin:

1630s, from French ichor (16c) or Modern Latin ichor, from Greek ikhōr, a word of unknown origin, possibly from a non-Indo-European language. (Online Etymology Dictionary)