Petrichor is the distinctive smell of rain falling on dry ground, when a long hot drought is finally broken by a summer downpour.

I didn't know the word until today. What brought it to my attention was an article in Scientific American describing how climate change is affecting petrichor.

This is one of those words for which the etymology is not in any doubt. It was coined in 1964 by Bear and Thomas, writing in Nature^[1].

I think it works as a word, in the sense that it is memorable, but we can see its Greek roots and you would hardly be able to work out its meaning from them. The first element is petr-, a shortening of petros, 'rock, stone'. The second element -ichor was the liquid that flowed on the veins of the Gods, according to Greek myth. Neither Greek word has been traced any further back and the conjecture is they are borrowing from an unknown pre-Greek language.

[1] Bear, I and Thomas, E., (1964) "Nature of Argillaceous Odour”, Nature 201, 993–995.