smorgasbord

Etymology

Borrowed from Swedish smörgåsbord (“buffet with many small dishes”), from smörgås (“sandwich”) + bord (“table”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsmɔːɡəsˌbɔːd/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsmɔɹɡəsˌbɔɹd/, /ˈʃmɔɹɡəsˌbɔɹd/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)d

Noun

smorgasbord (plural smorgasbords)

1. A buffet with many small dishes.
   • 1965, California Bureau of Food and Drug Inspections, Recommendations for Food Protection Devices: Cafeterias, Buffets, Chuck Wagons, Smorgasbords, page 1:

     Cafeterias, buffets, chuck wagon service and smorgasbords are becoming increasingly popular food service methods.

   • 2010, Jeff Pepper, quoting Pete Helland, Daily Triumph, quoted in Thanks to God for the Smorgasbord, page 15:

     It is a smorgasbord. That means that after you pay a certain amount of money for your meal you can eat anything you want, together with as much as you want. I remember the first time my folks took me to a smorgasbord.

   • 2011, Darwin Porter; Danforth Prince; Roger Norum, Frommer's Scandinavia, page 17:

     The fame of the smörgåsbord (smorgasbord) is justly deserved. Using a vast array of dishes—everything from Baltic herring to smoked reindeer—the smorgasbord (never served in the evening) can be eaten either as hors d'oeuvres or as a meal in itself.

2. (figuratively) An abundant and diverse collection of things.
   • 2004, Nicholas Ayo, Times of Grace: Spiritual Rhythms of the Year at the University of Notre Dame, page 59:

     Here is the smorgasbord of life, and our unfocused eyes are even bigger than our stomachs.

   • 2011, Lorena Bathey, Happy Beginnings: How I Became My Own Fairy Godmother‎:

     It appeared to me that this sexual smorgasbord was a way for these women to feel something again.

   • 2011, Charles Hanly, “Chapter Seven: Logic, Meaning and Truth in Psychoanalytic Research”, in Jorge Canestri, Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber, Mary Target, editors, Early Development and its Disturbances, page 211:

     As such, and unlike philosophy which has toyed with this self-definition, it is not good enough for psychoanalysis to be a smorgasbord of alternative ways of interpreting human nature. The smorgasbord of available therapies is already heavily laden with alternative psychotherapies without psychoanalysis adding further varieties of its own.