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ichor

UK /ˈaɪkɔː/noun

ichor is a noun meaning “The liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-C-H-O-R, and it appears about once in every 20 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ichor is ichors.

What does ichor mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods.

  2. 2

    The blood of human beings or animals; also (obsolete) the clear, fluid portion of blood; blood plasma, plasma.

  3. 3

    A blood-like fluid.

  4. 4

    archaicA fluid believed to seep out from magma and cause rock to turn into granite.

  5. 5

    obsoleteA fetid, watery discharge from a sore; pus.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce ichor?

  • UK /ˈaɪkɔː/
  • UK /-kə/
  • UK /ˈɪkə/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ichor.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ichor2.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ichor3.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of ichor

  • ichors plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is ichor?

Ichor appears about once in every 20 million words in written English, the 134,976th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Ichor in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense liquid said to flow in place of blood in the veins of the gods:

LanguageWords
Frenchichor
GermanIchor
Portugueseicor
Spanishicor

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does ichor come from?

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: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).