Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Greek Mythology The horn of the goat that suckled Zeus, which broke off and became filled with fruit. In folklore, it became full of whatever its owner desired.
  • noun A representation of a goat's horn overflowing with fruit, flowers, and grain, signifying prosperity.
  • noun A cone-shaped ornament or receptacle.
  • noun An overflowing store; an abundance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In classical antiquity, the horn of plenty (which see, under horn).
  • noun Hence A horn-shaped or conical vessel or receptacle; especially, such a vessel of paper or other material, filled or to be filled with nuts or sweetmeats.
  • noun [capitalized] [NL.] A genus of grasses whose spikes resemble the cornucopia in form.
  • noun An extension of the choroid plexus into each lateral recess of the fourth ventricle of the brain.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The horn of plenty, from which fruits and flowers are represented as issuing. It is an emblem of abundance.
  • noun (Bot.) A genus of grasses bearing spikes of flowers resembling the cornucopia in form.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Greek mythology A goat's horn endlessly overflowing with fruit, flowers and grain; or full of whatever its owner wanted.
  • noun A hollow horn- or cone-shaped object, filled with edible or useful things.
  • noun An abundance or plentiful supply.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a goat's horn filled with grain and flowers and fruit symbolizing prosperity
  • noun the property of being extremely abundant

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin cornūcōpia, from Latin cornū cōpiae : cornū, horn; see cornu + cōpiae, genitive of cōpia, plenty; see op- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin Cornūcōpiae ("mythical horn of plenty"), from cornū ("horn") + cōpia ("supply")

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word cornucopia.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • a town in Wisconsin, USA

    February 26, 2008

  • "For them, Iraq has been war as cornucopia, war as a consumer's paradise. Arguably, on a per-soldier basis, no military has ever occupied a country with a bigger baggage train. On taking Iraq, they promptly began constructing a series of gigantic military bases, American ziggurats meant to outlast them. These were full-scale 'American towns,' well guarded, 15-20 miles around, with multiple PXes, fitness clubs, brand fast-food outlets, traffic lights, the works. (This, in a country where, for years after the invasion, nothing worked.)"

    - Tom Engelhardt, 'Stuff Happens: The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq', 20 Nov 2008.

    November 21, 2008

  • The Oxford Companion to the English Language is a thousand-page cornucopia covering virtually every aspect of the English language

    May 27, 2010