philosophaster

Pronounced: fi-loss-uh-FAS-ter (alt: fi-LOSS-uh-fas-ter), noun

Notes: I didn’t know this word, but I do know what this word is

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Yesterday’s word

The word petrichor means “the pleasant smell of the first rain after a dry spell”

First usage

Our word came into English (was coined) in the 1960s

Background / Comments

I happened to know this word because it was used in a Doctor Who show called The Doctor’s Wife, which aired in May 2011. Our word was used and defined in the show to be something like ‘the smell of the earth after rain’. I had never heard the word before and assumed that it was made up for the show, and then later discovered that it was a real word. Our word was coined by IJ Bear and RG Thomas in 1964; it is from two Greek words: petros (stone) and ichor (the fluid that slows in the veins of the Greek gods).