Maecenas

English

Alternative forms

• Mæcenas (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle French mecenas, and its source, Latin Maecēnās (“literary patron”), from the name of Gaius Maecenas (c. 70–8 BCE), Roman statesman and patron of Horace and Virgil.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mʌɪˈsiːnəs/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Noun

Maecenas (plural Maecenases)

1. A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:

     […] thou art his dear and loving friend, good and gracious Lord and Master, his Maecenas.

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 103, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 367:

     [O]ur young gentleman was shewn into another room, where half a dozen of his fellow-adherents waited for their Mæcenas, who in a few minutes appeared, with a most gracious aspect, received the compliments of the morning, and sat down to breakfast, in the midst of them, without any further ceremony.

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 329:

     The government […] maintained one of the largest armies in Europe; it developed what became, by the 1780s, a navy as big as the British; and it played the role of cultural Maecenas.

   • 2010 November 5, Katherine Knorr, “For November, Paris Is the City of Lenses”, in The International Herald Tribune‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The contemporary art space created within the Palais de Tokyo (also home to the Paris Museum of Modern Art) is a pretty sad example of government as Maecenas.

Derived terms

• Maecenatism

Translations

a generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art

• Bulgarian: меценат (bg) m (mecenat)
• Catalan: mecenes (ca) m or f
• Finnish: mesenaatti (fi)
• French: mécène (fr) m or f
• German: Mäzen (de) m, Mäzenin (de) f
• Hungarian: mecénás (hu), műbarát (hu), művészetpártoló (hu)
• Italian: mecenate (it) m or f
• Portuguese: mecenas (pt) m or f
• Sicilian: micinati m or f
• Spanish: mecenas (es) m or f
• Vietnamese: Mạnh Thường quân

Anagrams

• Macanese

Latin

Etymology

Ultimately from Etruscan.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /mae̯ˈkeː.naːs/, [mäe̯ˈkeːnäːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /meˈt͡ʃe.nas/, [meˈt͡ʃɛːnäs]

Proper noun

Maecēnās m (genitive Maecēnātis); third declension

1. A Roman cognomen — famously held by:
   1. Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, a Roman patron
2. (by extension) Maecenas (any person who is a generous benefactor, particularly of the arts)

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	Maecēnās	Maecēnātēs
Genitive	Maecēnātis	Maecēnātum
Dative	Maecēnātī	Maecēnātibus
Accusative	Maecēnātem	Maecēnātēs
Ablative	Maecēnāte	Maecēnātibus
Vocative	Maecēnās	Maecēnātēs

Descendants

• → Dutch: mecenas
• → French: mécène
• → German: Mäzen