smorgasbord
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Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈsmɔːɡəsˌbɔːd/ (UK); /ˈsmɔɹɡəsˌbɔɹd/ (US)[1]
Etymology
It is borrowed from Swedish smörgåsbord,[2][3][4][5][6] from smörgås “bread and butter, open sandwich”[2][3][4][5] and bord “table”.[2][3][4][5][6] Smörgås is itself from smör “butter” and dialectal gås “lump of butter”,[2][3] literally “goose”.[2][4] The elements are related to smear, goose and board.[2][4]
Earliest recorded meaning
Swedish hors d'oeuvres served as a cold table of open sandwiches and assorted delicacies (1893, or 1879 in Merriam-Webster).[7][3][4][5]
Semantic evolution
The word came to mean any buffet with a wide selection of hot and cold dishes.[2][5][6][1] The figurative sense of a medley or rich variety of things is recorded from 1948.[7][4]
Timeline
- 1879 – Merriam-Webster's date.[5]
- 1893 – the Swedish buffet.[7][3][4]
- 1948 – a medley or miscellany.[7][4]
Modern meaning
Noun
- A buffet meal offering many hot and cold dishes, such as hors d'oeuvres, meats, fish, cheeses and salads.
- A large and varied collection; a medley.
Related words
- buffet
- smear
- goose
- board
References
- ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
- ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press