myth
Contents
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- mythe (rare or archaic)
Etymology[edit]
From Ancient Greek μῦθος (mûthos, “word, humour, companion, speech, account, rumour, fable”). English since 1830.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
myth (plural myths)
- A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding a god, a hero, the origin of the world or of a people, etc.
- (uncountable) Such stories as a genre.
- Myth was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted upon by his surroundings. (E. Clodd, Myths & Dreams (1885), 7, cited after OED)
- A commonly-held but false belief, a common misconception; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing; a popular conception about a real person or event which exaggerates or idealizes reality.
- 2016 October 23, John Oliver, “Opiods”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 27, HBO:
- Okay, okay, okay… First, of course, babies feel pain. How the fuck did we ever think otherwise⁉ But more importantly, the fact that painkillers are addictive was not a myth. It’s like a book of Greek mythology featuring the stories of Zeus, Sisyphus, Oedipus and Yanni. Come on! That last one is very real and it cannot be dismissed.
- A person or thing held in excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration based on popular legend
- Father Flanagan was legendary, his institution an American myth. (Tucson (Arizona) Citizen, 20 September 1979, 5A/3, cited after OED)
- A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
- Ld. Lytton
- As for Mrs. Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years.
- Ld. Lytton
Related terms[edit]
- mythic
- mythical
- mythicize
- mythify
- mythologem
- mythological
- mythology
- mythopoeia
- mythopoeic
- mythopoesis
- mythos
- pseudomyth
Translations[edit]
divine story
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commonly-held but false belief
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See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- myth in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- myth in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- "myth" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 210.
Welsh[edit]
Noun[edit]
myth
- Nasal mutation of byth.
Mutation[edit]
| Welsh mutation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| radical | soft | nasal | aspirate |
| byth | fyth | myth | unchanged |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | |||
