mythologize, v.
(mɪˈθɒlədʒaɪz)
[ad. F. mythologiser, f. mythologie mythology: see -ize.]
† 1. trans. To interpret (a story, fable) with regard to its mythological features; to expound the symbolism of. Obs.
| 1603 Florio Montaigne ii. x. (1632) 227 Most of æsopes fables have divers senses... Those which Mythologize them, chuse some kinde of colour well-suting with the fable. 1632 Sandys (title) Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologiz'd, and Represented in Figures. 1649 Ogilby tr. Virg. æn. i. 46 note. [Pallas], Goddess of Wisdom, born of Jove's Brain; by Macrobius..mythologiz'd, the Vertue of the Sun deriv'd from the highest part of the Sky. 1704 Swift T. Tub, Pref. Wks. 1751 I 11 This Parable was immediately mythologised. The Whale was interpreted to be Hobbes's Leviathan [etc.]. 1727 Warburton Tracts (1789) 108 How one of their own Fables is here mythologized and explained. |
2. intr. To relate a myth or myths; to construct a mythology. Also const. clause.
| 1609 Holland Amm. Marcell. d 2, Natalis Comes of this fabulous narration doth mythologize in this maner. 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. ii. i. 10 Noah his three sons divided the world; so did Saturnes... Thus they mythologised. 1718 Freethinker No. 88 ¶13 While the Writer thus gravely mythologizes on so odd an Adventure. 1753 S. Shuckford Hist. World, Creation Pref. (1810) II. 324 They mythologized that five gods were now born, Osiris, Orus, Typho, Isis, and Nepthe. 1848 ‘L. Mariotti’ Italy II. iv. 118 What can the poet hope by mythologising on well-defined historical events? 1883 Sat. Rev. 10 Nov. 607 As to Mr. Brown's examination of the character and legend of Circe, we are constrained to say that with all his industry, he is..mythologizing on a mistaken method. |
b. trans. To relate (something fictitious). rare.
| 1851 Fraser's Mag. XLIII. 410/1 That Hunter had been mythologizing..something to Benson's discredit. |
3. To represent or express mythologically. rare.
| 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. ii. §20. 83 What the Poets fable of Tantalus in Hell..is nothing to that true fear which men have of a Deity..in this life, which indeed was the very thing mythologized in it. 1902 Q. Rev. Oct. 481 The whirling wind..has been mythologised into a demon. |
4. trans. To make mythical; to convert into myth or mythology; to mythicize.
| 1847 J. W. Donaldson Vind. Protest. Princ. 67 The task which he [sc. Strauss] undertook, of mythologizing the evangelical history. 1878 Emerson Misc. Papers, Sov. Ethics Wks. (Bohn) III. 381 Our religion..respects and mythologizes some one time and place, and person. |
Hence myˈthologizing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1778 Potter æschylus, To Mrs. Montague (1808) p. xxvi, They [sc. the Greek writers] were indeed enough acquainted with Egypt to acquire from thence a turn for mythologizing. 1858 Max Müller Chips (1867) II. xvii. 154 Crime itself was called, in the later mythologizing language, the daughter of Night. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets Ser. ii. v. (1876) 132 The polytheistic and mythologising instincts of the race. 1880 Encycl. Brit. XIII. 399/1 Barren mythologizings. |