Friday, November 12, 2021

Word of the Day -- Cornucopia

It's fall in the US and we are getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of the year.  In fact, it might be the only holiday I actually like.  I love food, I love cooking, and I love the amount of food that usually accompanies the day. We cook and eat like there is no tomorrow.  It seems indulgent but that's why it is only once a year.  And of course with Thanksgiving, we also get:

Cornucopia -- an inexhaustible store : abundance; also a curved, hollow goat's horn or similarly shaped receptacle (such as a horn-shaped basket) that is overflowing especially with fruit and vegetables (such as gourds, ears of corn, apples, and grapes) and that is used as a decorative motif emblematic of abundance.

Cornucopia comes from the Latin cornu copiae, which translates literally as "horn of plenty." A traditional staple of feasts, the cornucopia is believed to represent the horn of a goat from Greek mythology. According to legend, it was from this horn that the god Zeus was fed as an infant. Later, the horn was filled with flowers and fruits, and given as a present to Zeus. The filled horn (or a receptacle resembling it) has long served as a traditional symbol in art and decoration to suggest a store of abundance. The word first appeared in English in the early 16th century; a century later, it developed the figurative sense of an overflowing supply.

Excerpts from Merriam - Webster 


 

 

 

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