muse

¹ American  

[myooz] / myuz /

verb (used without object)

mused, musing

1. to think or meditate in silence, as on some subject.

   Synonyms:

   deliberate, contemplate, ponder, dream, think, ruminate, cogitate

2. Archaic. to gaze meditatively or wonderingly.

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verb (used with object)

mused, musing

1. to meditate on.

   Synonyms:

   deliberate, contemplate, ponder

2. to comment thoughtfully or ruminate upon.

Muse ² American  

[myooz] / myuz /

noun

1. Classical Mythology.

   1. 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.

   2. any goddess presiding over a particular art.

2. (sometimes lowercase) the goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a poet, artist, thinker, or the like.

3. (lowercase) the genius or powers characteristic of a poet.

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MUSE ³ American  

abbreviation

1. Mainstream U.S. English: a dialect of American English that is considered to be standard or unmarked by dialectal variation in pronunciation, syntactic structures, or vocabulary, and that is heard in newscasts and taught in schools.

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muse ¹ British  

/ mjuːz /

verb

1. to reflect (about) or ponder (on), usually in silence

2. (intr) to gaze thoughtfully

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noun

1. archaic a state of abstraction

Muse ² British  

/ mjuːz /

noun

1. Greek myth any of nine sister goddesses, each of whom was regarded as the protectress of a different art or science. Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the nine are Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania

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muse ³ British  

/ mjuːz /

noun

1. a goddess that inspires a creative artist, esp a poet

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Other Word Forms

• museful adjective
• musefully adverb
• muser noun

Etymology

Origin of muse¹

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English musen “to mutter, gaze meditatively on, be astonished,” from Middle French muser, perhaps ultimately derivative of Medieval Latin mūsum “snout”; muzzle

Origin of Muse²

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English Muse, from Middle French, from Latin Mūsa, from Greek Moûsa

Origin of MUSE³

First recorded in 1995–2000; by abbreviation

Example Sentences

Some reports included the entire Catholic ritual, word for word; “it is so strange that what ever I may do finds its way to the newspapers …,” Maggie mused.

From Literature

They even mused that a fund manager might want to have two benchmarks — one for the top grouping of stocks, and then another for the rest — though they concede it would cause “operational complexities.”

From MarketWatch

The brand has moved away from the typical fashion playbook of setting an aspirational look and lifestyle in stone, encapsulated in a painfully unrelatable muse.

From The Wall Street Journal

The co-author of a report musing about artificial intelligence disrupting a host of businesses says he was betting those companies would go down in value.

From MarketWatch

But it is “a little bit more of a musing” for now, he said.

From The Wall Street Journal