Word Finder - ambrosia

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The food of the gods, thought to confer immortality.

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The anointing-oil of the gods.

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Any food with an especially delicious flavour or fragrance.

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Anything delightfully sweet and pleasing.

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An annual herb historically used medicinally and in cooking, Dysphania botrys.

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A mixture of nectar and pollen prepared by worker bees and fed to larvae.

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Any fungus of a number of species that insects such as ambrosia beetles carry as symbionts, "farming" them on poor-quality food such as wood, where they grow, providing food for the insect.

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A dessert made of shredded coconuts and tropical fruits such as pineapples and oranges; some recipes also include ingredients such as marshmallow and cream.

He tasted only ambrosia, sweet beyond imagination.

Here she was hospitably received by Celeus, and out of gratitude would have made his son Demophon immortal by anointing him with ambrosia and destroying his mortal parts by fire; but Metaneira, happening to see what was going on, screamed out and disturbed the goddess.

Probably the two terms were not originally distinguished; but usually both in Homer and in later writers nectar is the drink and ambrosia the food.

On the other hand, in Alcman nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides ambrosia the drink.

According to one of these stories Thetis used to lay the infant Achilles every night under live coals, anointing him by day with ambrosia, in order to make him immortal.

The name Ambrosia was also applied by Dioscorides and Pliny to certain herbs, and has been retained in modern botany for a genus of plants from which it has been extended to the group of dicotyledons called Ambrosiaceae, including Ambrosia, Xanthium and Iva, all annual herbaceous plants represented in America.

Ambrosia maritima and some other species occur also in the Mediterranean region.

A terrible struggle took place for the possession of his body, until Apollo rescued it from the Greeks, and by the command of Zeus washed and cleansed it, anointed it with ambrosia, and handed it over to Sleep and Death, by whom it was conveyed for burial to Lycia, where a sanctuary (Sarpedoneum) was erected in honour of the fallen hero.

He understands their change of manner, calmly tells them not to mock him by calling him "the venerable Gotama"; that he has found the ambrosia of truth and can lead them to it.

Many are the pet names, the poetic epithets bestowed upon it - the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the island amidst the floods, the place of bliss, emancipation, liberation, safety, the supreme, the transcendent, the uncreated, the tranquil, the home of peace, the calm, the end of suffering, the medicine for all evil, the unshaken, the ambrosia, the immaterial, the imperishable, the abiding, the farther shore, the unending, the bliss of effort, the supreme joy, the ineffable, the detachment, the holy city, and many' others.

Roscher (Nektar and Ambrosia, 1883; see also his article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologic) nectar and ambrosia were originally only different forms of the same substance - honey, regarded as a dew, like manna, fallen from heaven, which was used both as food and drink.

In Hawaii, short ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) is reported to be present in a number of locations.

Roscher thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing power of honey (see further Nectar).

Given its price tag, up to $2,700 per pound, you may assume it's sweet ambrosia.

He swung the car off the road and under an arch that read "Ambrosia Acres."

There is also an American beetle, the Ambrosia beetle, belonging to the family of Swlytidae, which derives its name from its curious cultivation of a succulent fungus, called ambrosia.

Ambrosia beetles bore deep though minute galleries into trees and timber, and the wood-dust provides a bed for the growth of the fungus, on which the insects and larvae feed.

For instance, if you like the Ambrosia 6x6 pad by Basic Grey, you can also purchase other Ambrosia line accessories.