ambrosia

/æmˈbroʊʒ(i)ə/

/æmˈbrʌʊʒə/

In Greek mythology, ambrosia was the food of the gods. At a picnic, ambrosia is a dessert made with oranges and shredded coconut. While the former bestowed immortality on all who ate it, the latter tastes very refreshing after fried chicken and potato salad.

In the Odyssey and the Iliad, Homer uses the word ambrosia for three things: the food of the Olympians, a salve used to treat corpses, and as a perfume to cover up the smell of uncured seal skins. Some scholars have identified ambrosia as honey while others feel that a type of hallucinogenic mushroom was meant in the myths. Regardless of all this confusion, the word is now used metaphorically to mean anything so fragrant, so delicious that it seems divine — including a popular orange-and-coconut confection.

Definitions of ambrosia

1. noun

   (classical mythology) the food and drink of the gods; mortals who ate it became immortal
   synonyms: nectar

   type of:

   dainty, delicacy, goody, kickshaw, treat

   something considered choice to eat
2. noun

   a dessert made of various fruits and often topped with shredded coconut (sometimes includes marshmallows)
   type of:

   afters, dessert, sweet

   a dish served as the last course of a meal
3. noun

   a mixture of nectar and pollen prepared by worker bees and fed to larvae
   synonyms: beebread

   type of:

   composition

   a mixture of ingredients
4. noun

   any of numerous chiefly North American weedy plants constituting the genus Ambrosia that produce highly allergenic pollen responsible for much hay fever and asthma
   synonyms: bitterweed, ragweed

   types:

   Ambrosia artemisiifolia, common ragweed

   annual weed with finely divided foliage and spikes of green flowers; common in North America; introduced elsewhere accidentally

   Ambrosia trifida, great ragweed

   a coarse annual with some leaves deeply and palmately three-cleft or five-cleft

   Ambrosia psilostachya, perennial ragweed, western ragweed

   coarse perennial ragweed with creeping roots of dry barren lands of southwestern United States and Mexico

   type of:

   weed

   any plant that crowds out cultivated plants