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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

muse.

THE SHORT MEANING

A source of creative inspiration.

Ideas & craft

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/mjuːz/Received-Pronunciation/mjuz/Canada, General-American/mjʉːz/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Of a person: a source of inspiration.

    Yoko Ono was John Lennon's wife, lover, and muse.
  2. A poet; a bard.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

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

verb/mjuːz/Received-Pronunciation/mjuz/Canada, General-American/mjʉːz/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To become lost in thought, to ponder.

    intransitive
  2. To say (something) with due consideration or thought.

    transitive
  3. To think on; to meditate on.

    transitive
  4. To wonder at.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English musen, from Old French muser.

noun/mjuːz/Received-Pronunciation/mjuz/Canada, General-American/mjʉːz/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English musen, from Old French muser.

noun/mjuːz/Received-Pronunciation/mjuz/Canada, General-American/mjʉːz/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. A gap or hole in a hedge, fence, etc. through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.

Where this word comes from

From French musse. See muset.

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muse studiomuse workshello, muse

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Short meaning and theme: overword editorial selection.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.