Ancient Greek

Noun

μῦθος • ‎(mûthos) m ‎(genitive μύθου); second declension

1. something said: word, speech, conversation
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 11.561

     ἀλλ' ἄγε δεῦρο, ἄναξ, ἵν' ἔπος καὶ μῦθον ἀκούσῃς

   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.777

     μῦθον, ὃ δὴ καὶ πᾶσιν ἐνὶ φρεσὶν ἤραρεν ἥμιν.

   1. public speech
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 1.358

        ἔργον ἐποίχεσθαι· μῦθος δ' ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει

      • 750 BCE – 650 BCE, Hesiod, Works and Days 192
   2. (mostly in plural) talk, conversation
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.214
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.239
   3. advice, counsel, command, order, promise
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 5.493

        Ὣς φάτο Σαρπηδών, δάκε δὲ φρένας Ἕκτορι μῦθος·

      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 7.358

        οἶσθα καὶ ἄλλον μῦθον ἀμείνονα τοῦδε νοῆσαι.

   4. the subject of a speech or talk
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 22.289
      • 458 BCE, Euripides, Electra 346
   5. a resolve, purpose, design, plan
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.545
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 3.140
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.676
   6. saying, proverb
      • 458 BCE, Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers 314
   7. the talk of men, rumor, report, message
      • 497 BCE – 405 BCE, Sophocles, Ajax 226
      • 497 BCE – 405 BCE, Sophocles, Ajax 189
2. tale, story, narrative,
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 3.94
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.324
   1. tale, legend, myth
      • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 2.45
      1. (in Attic prose) a legend of the early Greek times, before the dawn of history
         • 380 BCE, Plato, The Republic 330.D
   2. a professed work of fiction, fable, such as those of Aesop
      • 380 BCE, Plato, The Republic 377.A
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Meteorology 2.3.2
   3. the plot of a tragedy
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Poetics 6.8

Inflection

Usage notes

The scholia on the Odyssey 21.71 says that μῦθος ‎(mûthos) is Aeolic for μόθος ‎(móthos), but compare μυθιήτης ‎(muthiḗtēs). It is used there in the significance of "resolve, purpose."

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• English: myth
• Greek: μύθος ‎(mýthos)
• Italian: mito
• Russian: миф ‎(mif)

References

• μῦθος in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• μῦθος in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• μῦθος in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• «μῦθος» in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. (2001) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
• «μῦθος» in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• μῦθος in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• “G3454”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English-Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • account idem, page 7.
  • allegory idem, page 23.
  • anecdote idem, page 29.
  • bruit idem, page 101.
  • description idem, page 214.
  • fable idem, page 299.
  • fame idem, page 304.
  • fiction idem, page 317.
  • legend idem, page 484.
  • lore idem, page 500.
  • myth idem, page 549.
  • narrative idem, page 551.
  • news idem, page 557.
  • parable idem, page 591.
  • report idem, page 697.
  • romance idem, page 720.
  • rumour idem, page 726.
  • saying idem, page 736.
  • story idem, page 821.
  • tale idem, page 854.
  • tidings idem, page 874.
  • tradition idem, page 885.
  • true idem, page 898.
  • word idem, page 987.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume II, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 976