Word of the Day: May 30, 2009 - muse

muse (myooz)

As a verb, muse means "to think or meditate in silence, as on some subject." First used in the written form around 1300–1350. From the Middle English word musen, which meant "to mutter, gaze meditatively on, be astonished;" and the Latin mūsa.

As a noun (in Classical Mythology), a muse is "any of a number of sister goddesses, originally given as Aoede (song), Melete (meditation), and Mneme (memory), but latterly and more commonly as the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who presided over various arts: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (religious music), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy); identified by the Romans with the Camenae." First used in the written form around 1350–1400. From the Greek word Moûsa.

The Muse has inspired English poetry since Chaucer invoked her in 1374.  There are Greek dialect forms mōsa and moisa, and all three come from an original *montya. 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 the Greek noun mnēmosunē "memory," which comes from *mnā-, an extended form of the Greek and Indo-European root *men-, "to think." This is the root from which we derive amnesia (from Greek), mental (from Latin), and mind (from Germanic). The reconstructed form *montya that is the ancestor of Greek Mousa could then mean something like "having mental power."

**Muse is also one of my favorite bands. <3

Comments

[Tiger]

I was gonna say, is that a picture of Muse back in the day? I thought they were four guys, hardy har har.