Dictionary

ambrosial en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /æmˈbɹoʊʒəl/ (US)
• /amˈbɹəʊzɪəl/ (UK)

Etymology

Partly from ambrosia and partly from Latin ambrosius, + -al.

Meanings

1. (Greek) Pertaining to or worthy of the gods.
   • Their life is long; they eat Ambrosial food, and with the Deathless frame The beauteous dance. 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 228:
   • 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 [...] 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
2. Succulently sweet or fragrant; balmy, divine.
   • VVhile thus she spake, / She touched his eye-lashes with libant lip / And breath'd ambrosial odours; […] 1798 July, Walter Savage Landor, “Book VI”, in Gebir; a Poem, […], London: […] Rivingtons, […], →OCLC, page 57, lines 123–125:
   • 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. 1826, J. S. Byerley, “You Taught Me Love”, in The Universal Songster, Volume 3:
   • [T]his young hero, rising from his bed, proceeded to decorate his beautiful person, and shave his ambrosial chin […] 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:
   • Thy Chamber vvith Ambroſiall odors breatheth, / Nevv loues and true loues vnto them that entreateth, / And furious Mars made milde his Faulcheon ſheatheth / At thy delicious aſpect: […] 1607 February 12 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [Barnabe Barnes], The Divils Charter: A Tragædie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the Sixt. […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Iohn Wright, […], published 1607, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, signature E2, verso:

Forms

Deriveds

unambrosial · ambrosially

Synonyms

ambrosian · ambrosiac

Translations (4)

fr ambrosiaque (succulently sweet or fragrant) · pl ambrozyjski (succulently sweet or fragrant) · ca ambrosíac (succulently sweet or fragrant) · pt ambrosíaco (succulently sweet or fragrant)