Maecenas

English

Alternative forms

• Mæcenas (archaic)

Etymology

Derived 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): /mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -iːnəs
• Hyphenation: Mae‧ce‧nas

Noun

Maecenas (plural Maecenases)

2. A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Loue of men, which varies as his obiects, profitable, pleaſant, honeſt.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 3, section 2, member 2, subsection 1, page 507:

     […] thou art his deare and louing friend, good and gracious Lord and maſter, Mecenas, […]

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter CIII, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 126:

     After having enjoyed a very ſhort private audience in the cloſet, our 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: France from Louis XV to Napoleon‎^[1], Penguin Books, 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^[2], →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: мецена́т (bg) m (mecenát)
• Catalan: mecenes (ca) m or f by sense
• Dutch: mecenas (nl) m
• Esperanto: mecenato
• Finnish: mesenaatti (fi)
• French: mécène (fr) m or f by sense
• Georgian: მეცენატი (mecenaṭi)
• German: Mäzen (de) m, Mäzenin (de) f
• Hungarian: mecénás (hu), műbarát (hu), művészetpártoló (hu)
• Ido: please add this translation if you can
• Interlingua: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: mecenàte (it) m or f by sense
• Polish: mecenas (pl) m pers
• Portuguese: mecenas (pt) m or f by sense
• Sicilian: micinati m or f by sense
• Spanish: mecenas (es) m or f by sense
• Vietnamese: Mạnh Thường quân
• Volapük: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• “Maecenas”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Macanese

Latin

Etymology

Ultimately from Etruscan.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [mae̯ˈkeː.naːs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [meˈt͡ʃɛː.nas]
• Hyphenation: Mae‧cē‧nās

Proper noun

Maecēnās m (genitive Maecēnātis); third declension

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

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	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
• → Spanish: mecenas