muse

• enPR: myo͞oz
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /mjuːz/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /mjuz/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Homophones: mews, Meuse
• Rhymes: -uːz

From Middle French muse, from Latin Mūsa, from Ancient Greek Μοῦσα (Moûsa).

muse (plural muses)

1. (of people) A source of inspiration.

   Yoko Ono was John Lennon's wife, lover, and muse.

2. (archaic) A poet; a bard.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 85”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     My toung-tide Muſe in manners holds her ſtill,
     While comments of your praiſe richly compil'd,
     Reſerue their Character with goulden quill,
     And precious phraſe by all the Muſes fil’d.

   • 1637, John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC:

     So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn

• (source of inspiration): Pierian spring

• museum
• music

From Middle English musen, from Old French muser.

muse (third-person singular simple present muses, present participle musing, simple past and past participle mused)

1. (intransitive) To become lost in thought, to ponder.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:ponder

2. (transitive) To say (something) with due consideration or thought.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:muse.
3. (transitive) To think on; to meditate on.
   • c. 1726, James Thomson, Hymn:

     Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.

   • 2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36:

     It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […];  […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.

4. (transitive) To wonder at.
   • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed; for what I will, I will, and there an end.

• muser
• musing
• amuse

muse (plural muses)

1. An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     still he sate long time astonished / As in great muse, ne word to creature spake.

   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC:

     And with this Alan fell into a muse, and for a long time sate^[sic] very sad and silent.

   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 416:

     He fell into a muse and pulled his upper lip.

From French musse. See muset.

muse (plural muses)

1. 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)

• Semu, emus, umes

• IPA^(key): /myz/

• Audio

  (file)

• Homophones: musent, muses

muse f (plural muses)

1. artistic inspiration
2. muse (specific artistic subject)

muse

1. inflection of muser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “muse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• émus, meus, mues, seum

muse f

1. plural of musa

• sume

muse

1. Alternative form of mous

muse

1. Alternative form of Muse

muse

1. Alternative form of musen

From French musée, from Latin mūsēum, from Ancient Greek Μουσεῖον (Mouseîon).

• IPA^(key): /mʉ.seː/, [mʉʷ.ˈseː]

muse n (definite singular museet, indefinite plural muse or museer, definite plural museene or musea)

1. Alternative form of musé

• “muse” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Ancient Greek Μοῦσα (Moûsa).

• IPA^(key): /²mʉː.sə/

muse f (definite singular musa, indefinite plural muser, definite plural musene)

1. a muse

• IPA^(key): /²mʉː.sə/

muse (present tense musar, past tense musa, past participle musa, passive infinitive musast, present participle musande, imperative muse/mus)

1. to whisper

   Synonym: kviskre

From French musée, from Latin mūsēum, from Ancient Greek Μουσεῖον (Mouseîon).

• IPA^(key): /mʉ.seː/, [mʉʷ.ˈseː]

muse n (definite singular museet, indefinite plural muse, definite plural musea)

1. alternative spelling of musé

• “muse” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

muse

1. only used in se muse, third-person singular present indicative of musirse
2. only used in te ... muse, syntactic variant of músete, second-person singular imperative of musirse