Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Muse

Muse (mūz), n. [From F. musse. See Muset.] A gap or hole in a hedge, hence, wall, or the like, through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.

Find a hare without a muse. Old Prov.

Muse, n. [F. Muse, L. Musa, Gr. Μοῦσα. Cf. Mosaic, n., Music.] 1. (Class. Myth.) One of the nine goddesses who presided over song and the different kinds of poetry, and also the arts and sciences; — often used in the plural.

Granville commands; your aid, O Muses, bring: What Muse for Granville can refuse to sing? Pope.

☞ The names of the Muses were Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polymnia or Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

2. A particular power and practice of poetry. Shak.

3. A poet; a bard. [R.] Milton.

Muse, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Mused; p. pr. & vb. n. Musing.] [F. muser to loiter or trifle, orig., to stand with open mouth, fr. LL. musus, morsus, muzzle, snout, fr. L. morsus a biting, bite, fr. mordere to bite. See Morsel, and cf. Amuse, Muzzle, n.] 1. To think closely; to study in silence; to meditate. "Thereon mused he." Chaucer.

He mused upon some dangerous plot. Sir P. Sidney.

2. To be absent in mind; to be so occupied in study or contemplation as not to observe passing scenes or things present; to be in a brown study. Daniel.

3. To wonder. [Obs.] Spenser. B. Jonson.

Syn. — To consider; meditate; ruminate. See Ponder.

Muse, v. t. 1. To think on; to meditate on.

Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise. Thomson.

2. To wonder at. [Obs.] Shak.

Muse, n. 1. Contemplation which abstracts the mind from passing scenes; absorbing thought; hence, absence of mind; a brown study. Milton.

2. Wonder, or admiration. [Obs.] Spenser.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.