Muse

How to spell muse

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce muse

What does muse mean?

1. verbTo think about something quietly and at length; to reflect or ponder.
2. nounA person or thing that is a source of artistic inspiration.

Muse in a sentence

• verb

  He liked to muse over the day's events before falling asleep.

• noun

  The painter said his late wife had been his lifelong muse.

• verb

  She would often muse on what her life might have been.

• noun

  The songwriter found a new muse in the quiet coastal town.

Where does muse come from?

Language of origin: French

This word actually carries two intertwined histories that landed on the same spelling. The verb 'to muse', meaning to ponder or reflect, came into English in the 1300s from the Old French verb muser, which literally meant to loiter, to dawdle, or to stand with the muzzle in the air sniffing about, and so by extension to be lost in thought. The noun 'muse', meaning a source of artistic inspiration, has a grander pedigree: it descends from Latin Musa, borrowed from the Greek Mousa, the name given to each of the nine goddesses who presided over poetry, music, and the arts. From that same Greek root we also inherit 'music' and 'museum' (originally a temple or seat of the Muses). The two senses sit comfortably side by side in modern English, and the spelling trap is mostly that 'muse' sounds identical to 'mews', the row of former stables, so the ear gives no help.

How the word is built

• muse (from Old French muser: to ponder, to loiter); the inspiration noun comes from Latin Musa, from Greek Mousa