smorgasbord
Americannoun
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a buffet meal of various hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, salads, casserole dishes, meats, cheeses, etc.
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an extensive array or variety.
The company has a smorgasbord of employee benefits.
noun
Etymology
Origin of smorgasbord
First recorded in 1875–80; from Swedish smörgåsbord, equivalent to smörgås “(slice of) bread and butter, sandwich,” from smör “butter”; ( see smear ( def. )) + gås “goose, (dialect) lump of fat or butter” ( see goose ( def. )) + bord “table” ( see board ( def. ))
Explanation
A smorgasbord is an assortment of different things — a magazine might feature a smorgasbord of stories on a wide variety of subjects. Use the noun smorgasbord when you're talking about a selection of things, like a fabulous breakfast buffet, a long list of college classes you could take, or a motley group of camping companions. In Swedish, a smörgåsbord is a table full of different sandwich offerings. It literally means "butter goose table," from smörgås, which alternately means "bread and butter," and "bread and goose," plus bord, or "table."
Vocabulary lists containing smorgasbord
The Melting Pot: Food Words from Other Languages
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Down and Across
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The Season of Styx Malone
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Madeline McIntosh, former head of Penguin Random House U.S. and CEO of Authors Equity, a publishing startup, called it “the smorgasbord factor.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
The human-headed fly in the ointment is the island itself, which is a supernatural smorgasbord, mostly quiet but waking up just in time to meet the visitors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2026
The ambitious action-adventure's been compared to a buffet, presenting players with a smorgasbord of ideas, gameplay styles and quests to gorge on.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
Only much later would I realize that it wasn’t so much a smorgasbord of vendors as it was the Gorgon Medusa: When one head is removed, more sprout in its place.
From Slate ● Jan. 13, 2026
“Granite and slate,” he said each time we visited, “maybe a little soapstone, sprinkled with limestone and quartz. Minerals galore! It’s a smorgasbord of metamorphic marvels!”
From Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
