The appeal of apricity

‘She’ll be telling us next how lovely the word petrichor is,’ replied my husband. I had told him that the redoubtable word-collector Susie Dent had said: ‘Probably my favourite winter-word of all, apricity, is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.’ She has been saying this every winter for years, and why not?

But I agree with my husband that petrichor is overdone. It was invented in 1964 by two contributors to the science journal Nature, and signifies the smell from rain falling on dry ground. The trouble is that petr– reminds me of petrol, and ichor, the ethereal fluid supposed to flow in the veins of the gods, also means acrid discharge issuing from certain wounds.

As for apricity, the single example of its use recorded by the 20-volume OED was in the English Dictionarie by Henry Cockeram (1623). He defined it as ‘The warmenes of the Sunne in Winter.’