photo: "Window on Rain" Pittsburgh, PA - July 24, 2006I stood in the garden, contentedly breathing in the petrichor, my bare feet nearly as grateful for the recent rain as the now muddy, formerly cracked and dry earth that was squishing between my toes.
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Wow! Thank you Pat Paulk for teaching me a fantastic new word! I never knew there was a word for that! It's one of my favorite smells! I had to cheat and look it up before I started the timer for this post.
Wordsmith.org defines petrichor as "The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell." [From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.] "Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain." Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta, California); Jan 2002.
5 comments:
I'm impressed!!! I had to look it up not so long ago. I love the word!!
It's a great word! Feel free to send any more good vocabulary words my way when you come across them! I'll post you a haiku as soon as I think of one!
Great photo,it almost looks like a painting.One-very clever-Word.
I love that smell!
That is one of the greatest smells ever....I should have know it had a name...there is a name for everything....but it never dawned on me that it had a name....cool
:)
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