A Word That Falls From the Sky

Finally, we had a weekend where we couldn’t make small talk about how unseasonable the weather seemed. None of winter having hightailed it early, none of the heavy-by-California-standards coat hanging unused in the closet and absolutely none of that “I guess this is why we live in Los Angeles” blather. (An appropriate response: “How interesting that you have exactly one criterion on which you picked you home!”) Yeah, Los Angeles was rained upon this weekend — even snowed upon in those mythical higher-up places where beach parking isn’t a thing — and I loved it. Damp socks and the occasional spokesmodel washed into the gutter make for small annoyances in the wake of a much-needed rain.

In celebration of the occasion — The Day It Rained That One Time, surely a holiday to be celebrated by Angelenos of the future — I’m picking a rain-related word of the week.

hyetal (HAI-eh-tul) — adjective: of or relating to rain or rainy regions.

So why this particular rain-related word? Its etymology doesn’t trace back to anywhere particularly interesting, unless you’re just nuts over huetos, the Greek word for “rain.” It sound especially clinical for a term that describes a phenomenon that tends to illicit specific emotional interactions in people. And it’s not even necessary, since we already have pluvial, a fancy word for “rain-related” that flows off the tongue like raindrops in a spring storm. (Hyetal, however, erupts from the back of the throat in the manner of explosive phlegm.) No, I picked hyetal simply because I had never heard it before last week. And it just somehow seems significant to have learned a new word for the kind of basic, familiar thing that a person might learn about in the first week of learning a new language.

Previous words of the week after the jump.

• acné excoriée des jeunes filles, adulterine, ageusia, ambeer, anosmia
• barn, barrack, beeturia, bissextile, bloofer, breastsummer, brinicle
• catholicon, cecaelia, cephalophore, cherpumple, chilver, chyron,           cockernonnie, collywobbles, coprolalia, couvade, cranberry morpheme, crwth, culaccino, cummingtonite
• darkle, deasil, decussate, deuteragonist, dingbat, dingle
• eidolon, epeolatry, epopt, espalier, etui, exoterica
• fabiform, Feghoot, fissilingual, Föhnkrankheit, folderol, formication, freekeh, froward
• gallinipper, gnaborretni, grandgore, grue, guilloche, gyaru
• hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, hobson-jobson, hogo, honorificabilitudinitatibus, hoyden
• ignivomous, iracund, isabelline, itaiitai, izod, izzard
• jabroni, jamais vu, jehu, jumentous
• kaffir, kakopygian, kayfabe, knipperdollin
• lagniappe, leman, lemniscate, limnovore, linsey-woolsey, longicorn
• malacia, malison, maroon, milt, mongo, mooncalf, morepork, muzjiks
• narrenfreiheit, nef, nihilartikel, nobiliary particle, nosism
• ochanee, ogonek, ombré, ooglification, orchidectomy, ordured, orf, osculate
• pace, padiddle, paraprosdokian, pareidolia, pavonated, perendiate, perigee, petrichor, pettifogger, pettitoes, phlegmagogue, pismire, pixilated, pogonip, pong, pruniferous, puggle, pulveratricious, purse
• quacksalver, quagga, qualtagh, quidnunc, quiff
• ronion, roynish, rubirosa, rumpsprung, runcible
• salmagundi, scrutator, seneschal, sharrow, shebang, sinople, slampadato, slubberdegullion, stan, stevedore, suovetaurilia
• tappen, tatterdemalion, teratogenesis, tergiversate, tetromino, thagomizer, thon, tiffin, tittery-whoppet, tmesis, toby, tutoyer, tyro
• ucalegon, ultramontane, umiaq, umquhile
• veneficial, verdigris, vespertilionine, vinegeroon
• weeaboo, widdiful, williwaw, witzelsucht, wooper looper
• xenodocheionology, xyster
• yazoo, ypsiliform, yoink
• zanjero, zenzizenzizenzic, zinnober, zugzwang