mythology

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French mythologie, recorded in 1403, or its source, Late Latin mythologia (“exposition of myths”),^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek μυθολογία (muthología, “story-telling, legendary lore, fiction”),^[2][6][7] a compound of μῦθος (mûthos, “word, speech, tale, legend”) and -λογία (-logía), from λόγος (lógos, “word, speech, account”).^[8][5][7] The Greek noun is found in Plato,^[2] and Merriam-Webster connects it with a Greek verb meaning to narrate mythical tales.^[5] The Latin word was known in the Middle Ages above all as the title of the “Mythologiae”, a late 5th-century work attributed to Fulgentius and widely read as a source for classical myths.^[2] Etymonline calls the Greek word for myth one of unknown origin;^[6] in English, mythology is much older than myth, which Weekley calls modern.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The exposition or interpretation of myths, or a book of such interpretations: about 1425, in Lydgate's Troy Book.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the work of explaining fables, a sense that lasted until the mid-17th century.^[2][3] In 1603, in Philemon Holland's translation of Plutarch, it also meant the hidden or allegorical meaning of a fable, and a mythical story or parable itself; both senses later died out.^[2][5] The modern sense of myths taken together appears in 1646 in Sir Thomas Browne,^[2] and that of the whole body of myths of a people or tradition in 1718,^[2] although Etymonline dates "a body or system of myths" only to 1781.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as a "system of fables" and an "explication of the fabulous history of the gods of the heathen world".^[10] The study of myths as a branch of knowledge is recorded from 1809.^[2] Weekley quotes Max Müller's view that mythology "is in truth a disease of language".^[9] In the 20th century the word was extended to the received ideas or beliefs that surround a subject, first in 1949 in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four;^[2] Merriam-Webster also has a body of myths that grows up around an activity or event, or is consciously spread.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – the exposition or interpretation of myths (obsolete by 1656).^[2]
• 1603 – the symbolic meaning of a fable; a myth, a parable (both obsolete).^[2]
• 1646 – myths collectively.^[2]
• 1718 – a body of myths of a particular people or tradition (1781 in Etymonline).^[2][6]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as a system of fables.^[10]
• 1809 – the study of myths.^[2]
• 1949 – the received beliefs or ideology surrounding a subject.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A body of myths, especially the stories of the gods and heroes of a particular people or religion: She knew the old tales of Celtic mythology by heart.^[11][5][2]
2. A set of stories or beliefs that has grown up around a person, institution or event, often exaggerated or untrue: the mythology of the frontier.^[11][5][2]
3. Myths in general, taken collectively.^[11][2]
4. The study or collecting of myths.^[11][2]
5. (obsolete) The symbolic or allegorical meaning of a fable or name.^[5][2]
6. (obsolete, 1603–1873) An allegorical story; a parable.^[5][2]

Word family

• mythologer
• mythologist
• mythological
• mythologize

Related words

• myth
• -logy
• logos

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins