Word Finder - myth

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.

At last the myth stopped being repeated.

The name, however, is so obscured by myth and fable as scarcely to belong to history.

With this may be compared the festivals of Adonis and Osiris and the myth of Persephone.

This would leave no time for the growth of his myth.; and his myth was, as is evident from what we have already said and quoted, full-grown in the first half of the 14th century.

Hence the battle has been explained as the necklace myth in epic form.

Whatever may have been the immediate genesis of the myth - and it may well be sought in the heartless forest laws - its vitality was assured by the English love of archery and historical repetition.

After this the main effort of his life was to realize visions of beauty suggested by classic myth and history.

Of the later stage, when the myth of Nero redivivus was fused with that of the Antichrist, we have attestation in xvii.

That Machiavelli invented it to express the irritation of his own domestic life is a myth without foundation.

This development of the Neronic myth belongs to the last years of the 1st century, and is decidedly against a Vespasianic date.

Another still later myth, which occurs in the epic poems, makes Brahma be born from a lotus which grew out of the navel of the god Vishnu whilst floating on the primordial waters.

The mythic element is practically lacking in the French legends, but in Germany some part of the Odin myth was associated with Charles's name.

His waters were said to pass beneath the sea and rise again in the fountain Arethusa at Syracuse; such is the earlier version from which later mythologists and poets evolved the familiar myth of the loves of Alpheus and Arethusa.

Was this an isolated myth told only within Norse culture?

The most popular myth is the story of Buddha inviting all of the animal kingdom to his Chinese New Year's celebration.

Long-gone is the myth that big, beautiful women need to wear dark colors.

It's a myth that those with oily skin don't need moisturizer.

It is an amalgamation of the myth tof Beowa, the slayer of the water-demon and the dragon, with the historical legend of Beowulf, nephew and successor of Hygelac (Chochilaicus), king of the Geatas, who was defeated and slain (c. 520) while ravaging the Frisian coast.

But Gunkel's explanation is an attempt to account for one ignotum per ignotius; for hitherto no trace of the myth of the sun-god's birth and persecution and the flight into the wilderness has been found in Babylonian mythology.

A being with horns and a forked tail is a myth.

Universal Studios in Florida took advantage of the myth for their annual Halloween Horror Night events in 2008.

Urban legends, like ghost stories and reports of mysterious creatures, must be carefully examined and tested against historical and known facts to separate truth from myth, fact from fiction.

Researches go to show that Baiame has his counterpart in other tribes, the myth varying greatly in detail.

As well as myth, he uses wordplay to positive effect in some poems.

According to myth, they have the ability to change shape from human beings into anthropomorphic wolves whenever there is a full moon.

However, recent studies are working to dispel this myth, reminding fitness fans that your body begins to burn calories the moment your heart rate is sufficiently raised.

Of course, there would be nothing funny about such a situation, but it's really just an urban myth.

It's hard to imagine how the story would have had to change to account for such a different type; one feature of the Frankenstein monster myth is his hulking size.

Dragons and other great worms are universal in mankind's mythology; every culture has some form of giant worm myth.

Working mainly in acrylic, her fantasy art subjects are fairies, butterflies, mermaids, and other creatures of myth and nature.

From the resurrection of the 80's version of Battlestar Galactica to the 2008 re-visioning of the Oz myth in Tin Man, many first rate actors such as Edward James Olmos, Zooey Deschanel, and Alan Cumming have appeared in them.

Nearly every culture on the planet, in one form or another, has a myth about a man that can turn into a grisly beast - the Werewolf.

No matter what the evidence or the myth there are always those that believe.

The thing that's interesting is that these tales exist in countries that had no dealings with one another, which leads some to believe that fairies are not myth.

While elves are considered creatures of folklore and myth today by most cultures, the Norse, and later Germanic cultures, believed that these creatures were more than just imagination.

One of the amazing things about fantasy legend and myth is that many contemporary characters and concepts are derived from several different ancient ideas and histories, and such is the case with the Leo fairy.

Many people who first hear about the Bigfoot legend often ask, "Is Bigfoot a myth?"

It may actually make sense to attach the word "myth" to the Bigfoot legend.

Modern movies make use of the myth of Bloody Mary in films like Candyman.

The idea that platform shoes are solely synonymous with the disco era is a complete myth, though.

Alpheus was recognized in cult and myth as the chief or typical river-god in the Peloponnesus, as was Achelous in northern Greece.

As the myth of the Harlungen is connected with Ermanaric, so another Dioscuri myth (of the Hartungen) is combined with the Ortnit-Wolfdietrich legend.

The Algonkins, however, thought otherwise, and the myth itself suggests a theriomorphic earth-maker.

This chapter cannot be interpreted apart from the Neronic myth.

The existence of a larger Avesta, even as late as the 9th century A.D., is far from being a mere myth.

Thus, at Delphi there was an image of Aphrodite 6rtrupt31a (" Aphrodite of the tomb "), to which the dead were summoned to receive libations; the epithets ru,u i 3capvxos (" grave-digger "), µvxia (" goddess of the depths "), peXacv%s (" the dark one "), the grave of Ariadne-Aphrodite at Amathus, and the myth of Adonis, point in the same direction.

Another phase in the myth of Dionysus originated in observing the decay of vegetation in winter, to suit which he was supposed to be slain and to join the deities of the lower world.

The Buddha has not escaped the fate which has befallen the founders of other religions; and as late as the year 1854 Professor Wilson of Oxford read a paper before the Royal Asiatic Society of London in which he maintained that the supposed life of Buddha was a myth, and "Buddha himself merely an imaginary being."

The ancient Calauria, with which Poros is identified, was given, according to the myth, by Apollo to Poseidon in exchange for Delos; and it became in historic times famous for a temple of the sea-god, which formed the centre of an amphictyony of seven maritime states' - Hermione, Epidaurus, Aegina, Athens, Prasiae, Nauplia, and Orchomenus.

He sought the courts of Tuscany and Naples and tried to enlist Frank sympathies, inventing (probably) the curious myth, so often credited since, that the Druses are of crusading origin and owe their name to the counts of Dreux.1 1 Sophisticated Druses still sometimes claim connexion with Rosicrucians, and a special relation to Scottish freemasons.