Nectar

How to spell nectar

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce nectar

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nectar mean?

1. nounThe sweet sugary liquid that flowers produce to attract pollinating insects and birds.
2. nounA deliciously sweet drink, especially a thick fruit beverage or, in mythology, the drink of the gods.

Nectar in a sentence

• Bees gather nectar from the lavender along the garden wall.

• She poured a glass of chilled apricot nectar for the guests.

• The hummingbird hovered to sip nectar from each red blossom.

• After the long hike, the cold peach nectar tasted like a reward.

Where does nectar come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek nektar, the name of the legendary drink of the gods that was thought to keep them immortal, served alongside their food, ambrosia. Many scholars break the Greek word into nek-, meaning 'death', and a second part meaning 'to overcome' or 'pass beyond', so the whole word literally suggested something that defeats death. Latin took the word over unchanged as nectar, and it entered English in the middle of the 1500s, at first only in its mythological sense of a divine or supremely delicious drink. From there it broadened naturally to mean any wonderfully sweet liquid, and by the 1600s botanists were using it for the sugary fluid that flowers secrete to attract bees and other pollinators. The unusual ending is the spelling trap: although it sounds like a weak '-er', it is written '-ar', a clue to its classical Greek and Latin pedigree.

How the word is built

• nektar (Greek: the drink of the gods), often analysed as nek- (death)
• -tar (overcoming, passing beyond)