nectar

From Latin nectar, from Ancient Greek νέκταρ (néktar, “nourishment of the gods”), from Proto-Indo-European *neḱ- (“perish, disappear”) + *-tr̥h₂ (“overcoming”), from *terh₂- (“to overcome, pass through, cross over”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈnɛk.tə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈnɛk.təɹ/
• Hyphenation: nec‧tar

nectar (countable and uncountable, plural nectars)

1. (chiefly mythology) The drink of the gods. [from 16th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.4:

     They pourd in soveraine balme and Nectar good, / Good both for erthly med'cine and for hevenly food.

2. (by extension) Any delicious drink, now especially a type of sweetened fruit juice. [from 16th c.]
3. (botany) The sweet liquid secreted by flowers to attract pollinating insects and birds. [from 17th c.]

• nectarine
• nectarous
• nectary

• ambrosia
• pollen

nectar (third-person singular simple present nectars, present participle nectaring, simple past and past participle nectared)

1. (intransitive) To feed on nectar.
   • 2010, Robert Michael Pyle, Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year (page 123)

     On the lane below, more orangetips nectared on spring beauties and violets.

• Canter, Cretan, canter, carnet, centra, creant, recant, tanrec, trance

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nectar m (plural nectars)

1. (Greek mythology, Roman mythology) nectar, beverage drunk by the Olympians

   Synonym: godendrank

   Coordinate term: ambrozijn

2. (botany, insects) nectar, liquid produced by flowers

From Latin nectar, from Ancient Greek νέκταρ (néktar), from Proto-Indo-European *néḱtr̥h₂, derived from the roots *neḱ- (“to perish, disappear”) and *terh₂- (“to overcome”).

nectar m (plural nectars)

1. nectar (all meanings)

• nectaire

• “nectar” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈnek.tar/, [ˈnɛk.tar]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈnek.tar/

From Ancient Greek νέκταρ (néktar), from Proto-Indo-European *néḱ-tr̥h₂, derived from the roots *neḱ- (“to perish”) and *terh₂- (“to overcome”).

nectar n (genitive nectaris); third declension

1. nectar

Third declension neuter “pure” i-stem.

• nectareus

• English: nectar
• French: nectar
• Italian: nettare

• nectar in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• nectar in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• nectar in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• nectar in William Smith, editor (1848) A Dictionary of Greek Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

See the etymology of the main entry.

nectar

1. first-person singular future passive indicative of nectō