museum
pronunciation
How to pronounce museum in British English:
UK [mjuˈziːəm]
How to pronounce museum in American English:
US [mjuˈziːəm]
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- Noun:
- a depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific or historical or artistic value
Word Origin
- museum
- museum: [17] Etymologically, a museum is a place devoted to the ‘muses’. It comes via Latin mūsēum ‘library, study’ from Greek mouseion ‘place of the muses’, a noun based on the adjective mouseios ‘of the muses’. This in turn was derived from mousa ‘muse’, source of English muse [14]. Other English words from the same source are mosaic and music. But muse ‘ponder’ is not related; it comes, like its first cousin amuse, from Old French muse ‘animal’s mouth’.=> mosaic, muse, music
- museum (n.)
- 1610s, "the university building in Alexandria," from Latin museum "library, study," from Greek mouseion "place of study, library or museum, school of art or poetry," originally "a seat or shrine of the Muses," from Mousa "Muse" (see muse (n.)). Earliest use in reference to English institutions was of libraries (such as the British Museum); sense of "building to display objects" first recorded 1680s.
Example
- 1. I love just going down to the balcony and watching our visitors coming into the museum .
- 2. Each new feature the company rolls out seems like another quaint addition to its museum of unmonetized innovations .
- 3. Most towns I 've visited have a history museum .
- 4. The national palace museum is one of the world 's greatest collections of chinese antiquities .
- 5. Her book will counter much of the museum propaganda she helped produce .