- The definition of a muse is a spirit or source that inspires an artist.
- An example of muse is someone having a thought about the origin of life.
- An example of muse is the character Kira from the movie Xanadu.
- Muse is defined as to have deep thoughts or to meditate.
An example of muse is someone thinking about what their life may look like in the future.
intransitive verbmused, mus′ing
Origin of museMiddle English musen from Old French muser, to ponder, loiter, origin, originally , uncertain or unknown; perhaps to stand with muzzle in the air from Medieval Latin an unverified form musare from musum (from source Old French musel), snout, muzzle
- Gr. Myth. any of the Muses
- [m-] a person, esp. a woman, who is the object of love or devotion and is regarded as a source of inspiration
Origin of MuseOld French from Classical Latin musa from Classical Greek mousa, a Muse, music, eloquence from uncertain or unknown; perhaps Indo-European base an unverified form mendh-, to pay attention to, be lively from source Old Norse munda, to strive
verbmused, mus·ing, mus·es
Origin of museMiddle English musen from Old French muser ( possibly from mus snout ) ( from Medieval Latin mūsum ) or of Germanic origin
- Greek Mythology Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.
- muse a. A guiding spirit.b. A source of inspiration: the lover who was the painter's muse.
- muse Archaic A poet.
Origin of MuseMiddle English from Old French from Latin Mūsa from Greek Mousa ; see men-1 in Indo-European roots.Word History: Ever since Chaucer first mentions the Muses in a work from around 1390, English poets have invoked these goddesses like so many other versifiers since the days of Homer, who begins both The Iliad and The Odyssey with an invocation of his Muse. The word Muse comes from Latin Mūsa, which in turn is from Greek Mousa. In Greek dialects, this word is found in the variant forms mōsa and moisa, and together these indicate that the Greek word comes from an original *montwa. As to the further origins of this form, a clue is provided by the name of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and mother of the Muses. Her name is simply the Greek noun mnēmosunē, “memory”—the faculty of memory was indeed the mother of invention for the ancient Greek professional poets and bards whose job it was to compose new poems in traditional styles on festive occasions, to recite the verses of Homer, and to improvise material whenever they had a memory lapse. Greek mnēmosunē is derived from the root *mnā-, an extended form of the Greek and Indo-European root *men-, “to think.” This is the root from which English also gets the words amnesia (from Greek), mental (from Latin), and mind (from Germanic). The reconstructed form *montwa, the ancestor of Greek Mousa, also comes from this root and probably originally referred to “mental power” that enables poets to craft verses—the Muses were the Greek poets' divinized conceptions of the faculties that help them to create and recite poetry.
The plural musae can also be found, though it is much rarer than muses.
From Middle French muse, from Latin MÅ«sa, from Ancient Greek ÎœÎ¿á¿¦ÏƒÎ± (Mousa).
(third-person singular simple present muses, present participle musing, simple past and past participle mused)
- An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.
First attested in 1340. From Old French muser.
- A gap or hole in a hedge, fence, etc. through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.
- Find a hare without a muse. (old proverb)
- One of the nine Ancient Greek deities of the arts.