mythology
(mɪˈθɒlədʒɪ)
Also 5 meth-, 7 muth-, mythio-, mith-.
[a. F. mythologie or ad. late L. mȳthologia, a. Gr. µῡθολογία: see mytho- and -logy.]
† 1. a. The exposition of myths; the interpretation of a fable. Obs.
| 1412–20 Lydg. Chron. Troy ii. 2487 Þis god..Schewed hym silf in his apparence, Liche as he is discriued in Fulgence, In þe book of his methologies. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Mythologie, a declaration of fables, an expounding or moralizing upon a tale. |
† b. Symbolical meaning (of a fable, etc.).
Obs.| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1302 The Muthology of this fable..accordeth covertly, with the trueth of Nature. 1680 W. de Britaine Hum. Prud. §27. 89 A Country Man in Spain coming to an Image enshrined,..You need not (quoth he) be so proud, for we have known you from a Plumb-Tree: Have a care you do not find the Mythology in your self. a 1704 Brown New Maxims Conv. Wks. 1711 IV. 11 It has been an old Remark..that Opinio is of the Feminine Gender... The Grammatical Observation is not worth a Farthing, but a wholesome Mythology's couched under it. a 1734 North Lives, Sir Dudley North (1742) 152 Those [sc. Whig and Tory] were the Appellatives; but the Mythology was Seditious and Loyal. |
2. a. A mythical story.
rare.
† Formerly in wider use: A parable, allegory.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. Explan. Words, Mythologie, a fabulous Narration: or the delivery of matters by way of fables and tales. 1610 ― Camden's Brit. ii. 220 By which prety fable..is covertly couched by a Mythiology that there lie hidden in these Ilands, veines or mines of Mettals. 1640 Bp. Reynolds Passions iv. 21 Wee finde some roome in the holy Scriptures for Mythologies; as that of the Vine, the Fig-tree, and the Bramble. 1654 Vilvain Epit. Ess. v. 88 Any Poetasters may make the like Mythologies from Esops Fables. 1664 More Myst. Iniq. Apol. x. 566 Such as Allegorize away the History of Christ into an heartless Mythology. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets i. 2 We call Mythologies those poems of pure thought and fancy, cadenced not in words, but in living imagery,..mirrors of the mind of nascent nations. |
b. In generalized use, without article.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. viii. 30 All which [sc. the relations of Sir J. Maundeville] may..afforde commendable mythologie, but..containeth impossibilities, and things inconsistent with truth. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. ii. 37 The Modesty of Mythology deserves to be commended... 'Tis once upon a time, in the Days of Yore, and in the Land of Vtopia. 1727 Swift Wonder of Wonders Wks. 1751 V. 80 The Heathen Religion is mostly couched under Mythology. 1843 Prescott Mexico i. iii. (1850) I. 45 Mythology may be regarded as the poetry of religion,—or rather as the poetic development of the religious principle in a primitive age. 1845 S. Austin Ranke's Hist. Ref. I. 291 Erasmus adopted the idea of the Italians,—that the sciences were to be learned from the ancients.., mythology from Ovid [etc.]. |
3. A body of myths,
esp. that relating to a particular person, or belonging to the religious literature or tradition of a country or people.
| 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. xxviii. III. 101 The monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology. 1830 H. N. Coleridge Grk. Poets 74 The Mythology..of the Iliad, purely pagan as it is. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Race, The songs of Merlin, and the tender and delicious mythology of Arthur. 1880 H. Phillips Worship of Sun 5 In the Indian mythology the worship of Surya is the same as that of Helios or Here. |
| transf. 1821 Lamb Elia i. Old Benchers Inner T., Fantastic forms..who made up to me—to my childish eyes—the mythology of the Temple. 1949 ‘G. Orwell’ Nineteen Eighty-Four ii. 155 She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life. Often she was ready to accept the official mythology. 1961 Listener 24 Aug. 281/2 This is an antidote to militarism which does not exist in western ‘mythology’. 1965 M. Schofield Sexual Behaviour of Young People i. i. 9 The frequent articles in the press and the radio and TV programmes tend to create a teenage mythology. 1975 Times 22 Sept. 13/2 Not all private [pension] schemes were in fact as generous as popular mythology suggested. |
4. That department of knowledge which deals with myths.
| 1836 Smart, Mythology,..the science of those fables which constitute the religious system and the poetical machinery of the ancient Greeks and Romans. 1864 Chamb. Encycl. VI. 646/2 The science of comparative mythology. |