ambrosial
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Partly from ambrosia and partly from Latin ambrosius, + -al.[1]
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]ambrosial (comparative more ambrosial, superlative most ambrosial)
- (Greek mythology) Pertaining to or worthy of the gods.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- And whilst he slept she [Venus] over him would spred / Her mantle, colour’d like the starry skyes, / And her soft arme lay underneath his hed, / And with ambrosiall kisses bathe his eyes [...]
- Succulently sweet or fragrant; balmy, divine.
- 1607, [Barnabe Barnes], The Divils Charter: A Tragædie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the Sixt. […], London: Printed by G[eorge] E[ld] for Iohn Wright, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene ii:
- 1798 July, Walter Savage Landor, “Book VI”, in Gebir; a Poem, […], London: […] Rivingtons, […], →OCLC, page 57, lines 123–125:
- VVhile thus she spake, / She touched his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […]
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XXVIII, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
- [T]his young hero, rising from his bed, proceeded to decorate his beautiful person, and shave his ambrosial chin […]
- 1826, J. S. Byerley, “You Taught Me Love”, in The Universal Songster, Volume 3:
- By your cheek of vermil hue, / By your lip’s ambrosial dew, / By your soft and languid eye, / By your swelling bosom’s sigh, / You taught me love.
Synonyms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]succulently sweet or fragrant
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References
[edit]- ^ “ambrosial, adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
