smorgasbord
[smawr-guh s-bawrd, -bohrd or, often, shmawr-]
- a buffet meal of various hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, salads, casserole dishes, meats, cheeses, etc.
- an extensive array or variety: The company has a smorgasbord of employee benefits.
Show More
Also smör·gås·bord [Swedish smœr-gaws-boord] /Swedish ˈsmœr gɔsˌburd/.
Origin of smorgasbord
1915–20; < Swedish smörgsbord, equivalent to smörgs sandwich + bord table
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
buffet, hodgepodge, array, mishmash, assortment, jumble, choice, medley, collection, miscellanyExamples from the Web for smorgasbord
Contemporary Examples
In Magnolia (1999)—“a smorgasbord of pleasure, that movie”—he played opposite Tom Cruise as a nurse.
And so the brothers began to speed-read hundreds of biographies and books, compiling the anecdotes into a smorgasbord of trivia.
Sara Nelson remembers their smorgasbord of friendship and fine food.
smorgasbord
- a variety of cold or hot savoury dishes, such as pâté, smoked salmon, etc, served in Scandinavia as hors d'oeuvres or as a buffet meal
Show More
Word Origin
Swedish, from smörgås sandwich + bord table
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for smorgasbord
n.
1893, from Swedish smörgåsbord "open sandwich table," literally "butter-goose table," from smörgås, which is said to mean "bread and butter," but is compounded from smör "butter" (see smear (n.)) and gås, literally "goose" (and from the same Germanic root that yielded English goose (n.)), which is said by OED to have a secondary meaning of "a clump (of butter)." The final element is bord "table," from Proto-Germanic *burdam "plank, board, table" (see board (n.1)). Figurative sense of "medley, miscellany" is recorded from 1948.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper