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/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈnɛk.təɹ/
• Rhymes: -ɛktə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: nec‧tar

nectar (countable and uncountable, plural nectars)

1. (chiefly mythology) The drink of the gods. [from 16th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     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.]
4. (botany) The sweet liquid secreted by flowers to attract pollinating insects and birds. [from 17th c.]

• amber nectar
• Thomas's nectar bat

• 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.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “nectar”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

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

• Audio:

  (file)

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”).

• IPA^(key): /nɛk.taʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

nectar m (plural nectars)

1. nectar (all meanings)

• nectaire

• → Turkish: nektar

• “nectar”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈnɛk.tar]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈnɛk.t̪ar]

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

nectar n sg (genitive nectaris); third declension

1. nectar
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.432–434:

     [...] aut cum liquentia mella
     stīpant et dulcī distendunt nectare cellās,
     aut onera accipiunt venientum, [...].

     […], or when [honeybees] press the liquid honey and swell the cells with sweet nectar, or gather the burdens of incoming [bees], [...].

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem), singular only.

• nectareus

• → English: nectar
• French: nectar
• Italian: nettare
• Portuguese: néctar
• Spanish: néctar

• “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 and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

nectar

1. first-person singular future passive indicative of nectō

Borrowed from Ancient Greek νέκταρ (néktar) or French nectar.

nectar n (plural nectaruri)

1. nectar