SMORGASBORD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does smorgasbord mean? 

• SMORGASBORD (noun)
  The noun SMORGASBORD has 2 senses:

1. a collection containing a variety of sorts of things

2. an assortment of foods starting with herring or smoked eel or salmon etc with bread and butter; then cheeses and eggs and pickled vegetables and aspics; finally hot foods; served as a buffet meal

  Familiarity information: SMORGASBORD used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SMORGASBORD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A collection containing a variety of sorts of things

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

assortment; miscellanea; miscellany; mixed bag; mixture; motley; potpourri; salmagundi; smorgasbord; variety

Context example:

a veritable smorgasbord of religions

Hypernyms ("smorgasbord" is a kind of...):

accumulation; aggregation; assemblage; collection (several things grouped together or considered as a whole)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "smorgasbord"):

grab bag (an assortment of miscellaneous items)

witch's brew; witches' brew; witches' broth (a fearsome mixture)

range (a variety of different things or activities)

selection (an assortment of things from which a choice can be made)

farrago; gallimaufry; hodgepodge; hotchpotch; melange; mingle-mangle; mishmash; oddments; odds and ends; omnium-gatherum; ragbag (a motley assortment of things)

alphabet soup (a confusing assortment)

sampler (an assortment of various samples)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An assortment of foods starting with herring or smoked eel or salmon etc with bread and butter; then cheeses and eggs and pickled vegetables and aspics; finally hot foods; served as a buffet meal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("smorgasbord" is a kind of...):

buffet (a meal set out on a buffet at which guests help themselves)

Domain region:

Scandinavia (a group of culturally related countries in northern Europe; Finland and Iceland are sometimes considered Scandinavian)

 Context examples 

The finding is a new demonstration of the complex chemistry occurring in Titan’s atmosphere—in this case, cloud formation in the giant moon’s stratosphere—and part of a collection of processes that ultimately helps deliver a smorgasbord of organic molecules to Titan’s surface.

(NASA Team Finds Noxious Ice Cloud on Saturn’s Moon Titan, NASA)

Other researchers have previously suggested that acrylonitrile is an ingredient of Titan’s atmosphere, but they did not report an unambiguous detection of the chemical in the smorgasbord of organic, or carbon-rich, molecules found there.

(NASA Finds Moon of Saturn Has Chemical That Could Form ‘Membranes’, NASA)

To accurately fly by and point the spacecraft's instruments at a smorgasbord of targets, engineers used trajectory correction maneuver, or TCM, thrusters that are identical in size and functionality to the attitude control thrusters, and are located on the back side of the spacecraft.

(Voyager 1 Fires Up Thrusters After 37 Years, NASA)