Word Finder - myths

definition

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.

definition

Such stories as a genre.

example

Myth was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted upon by his surroundings. (E. Clodd, Myths & Dreams (1885), 7, cited after OED)

definition

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.

example

Scientists debunk the myth that gum stays in the human stomach for seven years.

definition

A person or thing held in excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration based on popular legend

example

Father Flanagan was legendary, his institution an American myth. (Tucson (Arizona) Citizen, 20 September 1979, 5A/3, cited after OED)

definition

A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.

Andre had another idea, one that might increase the chances of success, based on ancient myths from the time-before-time.

Unlike Indra, Varuna has no myths related of him.

The world had never quite forgotten the history of the primitive Greeks as it had forgotten the Mesopotamians, the Himyaritic nations and the Hittites; but it remembered their deeds only in the form of poetical myths and traditions.

According to him, the myths arose from definite local (especially atmospheric and aquatic) phenomena, and represented the annually recurring processes of nature as the acts of gods and heroes; thus, in Achill (1853), the Trojan War is the winter conflict of the elements in that district.

Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, there can be little doubt that Nergal represents the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice which brings destruction to mankind.

These deities are not easily ' One of the most important sources for the ancient Mexican traditions and myths is the so-called " Codex Chimalpopoca," a manuscript in the Mexican language discovered by the Abbe analysed, but on the other hand Tonatiuh and Metztli, the sun and moon, stand out distinctly as nature gods, and the traveller still sees in the huge adobe pyramids of Teotihuacan, with their sides oriented to the four quarters, an evidence of the importance of their worship. The war-god Huitzilopochtli was the real head of the Aztec pantheon; his idol remains in Mexico, a huge block of basalt on which is sculptured on the one side his hideous personage, adorned with the humming-bird feathers on the left hand which signify his name, while the not less frightful war-goddess Teoyaomiqui, or " divine wardeath," occupies the other side.

Im Neuen dos Alte (1837), which contains his theory of the origin and explanation of the Greek myths, which he never abandoned, in spite of the attacks to which it was subjected.

In Egypt too the systematizers were busily engaged in the co-ordination of myths.

Myths of origins there must indeed have been in those countries before Babylonian influence became so overpowering, but, if so, these myths must have become recast when the great Teacher of the Nations half-attracted and halfcompelled attention.

On the traces of dragon and serpent myths in the Old Testament and their significance, see Gunkel, Schopfung and Chaos (1895) - a pioneering work of the highest merit - and Ency.

The artist must indeed start with imaginative types, revealed to him in visions or borrowed from current myths.

The ancient Greeks associated this constellation with many myths.

Philochorus also wrote on oracles, divination and sacrifices; the mythology and religious observances of the tetrapolis of Attica; the myths of Sophocles; the lives of Euripides and Pythagoras; the foundation of Salamis.

Yet, for the most part, they either relate to objects thoroughly incapable of poetic treatment, where the writer's endeavour is rather to expound the matter fully than to render it poetically beautiful, or else expend themselves on short isolated subjects, generally myths, and are erotic in character.

This was followed by a long series of popular treatises in rapid succession, amongst the more important of which are Light Science for Leisure Hours and The Sun (1871); The Orbs around Us and Essays on Astronomy (1872); The Expanse of Heaven, The Moon and The Borderland of Science (1873); The Universe and the Coming Transits and Transits of Venus (1874);(1874); Our Place among Infinities (1875); Myths and Marvels of Astronomy (1877); The Universe of Stars (1878); Flowers of the Sky (1879); The Peotry of Astronomy (1880); Easy Star Lessons and Familiar Science Studies (1882); Mysteries of Time and Space and The Great Pyramid (1883); The Universe of Suns (1884); The Seasons (1885); Other Suns than Ours and Half-Hours with the Stars (1887).

Moreover, the myths were rationalized and allegorized, which was not in either case an original procedure.

They make counter attacks on polytheism as a folly and on the shamefulness of obscene myths.

His legendary presentation as the " Friend of God," like Abraham, to whom as to Cretan Moses the law was revealed on the holy mountain, calls myths.

Within a hundred years of his death the Cid had become the centre of a whole system of myths.

His investigation tends to show that in the course of tradition cosmological myths are transformed into eschatological dogmas.

There are obvious points of similarity, possibly of derivation, between the details in our text and the above myths, but the subject cannot be further pursued here, save that we remark that in the sun myth the dragon tries to kill the mother before the child's birth, whereas in our text it is after his birth, and that neither in the Egyptian nor in the Greek myth is there any mention of the flight into the wilderness.

The conception of an encompassing ocean bounding the habitable world is found in the creation myths of the most ancient civilizations.

The Jewish records are put on a level with the Greek myths, and miracles are laughed at as magical tricks.

Plato (Rep. x.) embodies the idea in one of his finest myths.

The subjects of the historical epics were generally some of the well-known myths, in the exposition of which the writer could exhibit the full extent of his learning and his perfect command of verse.

Considerable attention began to be paid to the ancient history of Greece, and to all the myths relating to the foundation of states and cities.

Myths, folk-lore, hunting charms, fetishes, superstitions and customs were based on the same idea.

The Dene (Tinneh) myths resembled those of the Eskimo, and all the hunting tribes of eastern Canada and United States and the Mississippi valley have a mythology based upon their zootechny and their totemism.

In this work he for the first time systematized an old Oriental (perhaps Phoenician) method of interpreting the popular myths, asserting that the gods who formed the chief objects of popular worship had been originally heroes and conquerors, who had thus earned a claim to the veneration of their subjects.

When the Israelites entered Canaan, they would learn myths partly of Babylonian origin.

Certain of the most ancient Babylonian myths, especially that of Adapa, may also be traced back to the shrine of Ea at Eridu.

The urns themselves are of alabaster, with the figure of the deceased on the lid, and reliefs from Greek myths on the front.

In the interpretation of myths Neoplatonism followed the allegorical method, as practised especially by the Stoa; but the importance it attached to the spiritualized myths was unknown to the Stoic philosophers.

The latter interpreted the myths and were done with them; the later Neoplatonists treated them as the proper material and the secure foundation of philosophy.

Ancient myths are admitted without undergoing analysis; the most naïve realism alternates with daring efforts at spiritualizing.

He gave a meaning to the myths of the popular religions, and he had something to say even for magic, soothsaying and prayer.

In this philosophy the mystical properties of numbers are a leading feature; absurd and mechanical notions are glossed over with the sheen of sacramental mystery; myths are explained by pious fancies and fine-sounding pietistic reflections; miracles, even the most ridiculous, are believed in, and miracles are wrought.

The church and church theology, to whose guidance the masses now surrendered themselves, took in along with them their superstition, their polytheism, their magic, their myths, and all the machinery of religious witchcraft.

This is a Gnostic interpretation of the various myths of the great mother-goddess's many loves and love-adventures with other gods and heroes.

From the same group of myths must be derived the idea of the goddess who descends to the under-world, and is there taken prisoner against her will by the lower powers; the direct prototype of this myth is to be found, e.g.

And since the Gnostics were compelled to draw the figure of the Saviour into a world of quite alien myths, their Christology became so complicated in character that it frequently recalls the Christology of the later dogmatic of the Greek Fathers.

It is the MS. of Father Francisco Ximenez, Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala, in three big volumes in folio, which contain the famous Spanish translation of the Quiche myths or the " Popol-Vuh."

The anecdotes told of Gaia Caecilia are aetiological myths intended to explain certain usages at Roman marriages.

America; and all over that region it is the chief figure in a group of myths, fulfilling the office of a culture hero who brings the light, gives fire to mankind, &c. Together with the eaglehawk the crow plays a great part in the mythology of S.E.

Euhemerus of Messenia tried of old to rationalize the Greek myths by supposing that the Olympian gods were deified men.

The Quiche Popol Vuh, or "Book of History," which was translated into Spanish by the Dominican friar Ximenes, and edited with a French version by Brasseur de Bourbourg, is an important document for students of the local myths.

Just as the background of Christianity was formed by the Hebrew scriptures, and just as the Hebrew legends of the creation became the basis of its scheme of human redemption from evil, so the Avesta, with its quaint cosmogony and myths, formed the background of Mani's new faith.

It is here that Busiris enters into the circle of the myths and parerga of Heracles, who had arrived in Egypt from Libya, and was seized and bound ready to be killed and offered at the altar of Zeus in Memphis.

Similar myths are found in relation to the Finnish smith-god Ilmarinen, who made a golden woman, and the Teutonic Wieland; a belief in the magical power of metal-workers is a common survival from an age in which their art was new and mysterious.

In 1869 he issued the Queen of the Air, lectures on Greek myths, a subject he now took up, with some aid from the late Sir C. Newton.