‖ musée
(ˈmjuːzeɪ, ‖ myze)
Also musee.
[Fr., ad. L. mūsēum.]
1. = museum.
| 1660 in C. Innes Sk. Early Scot. Hist. (1861) 452 The studie or musee belonging thereto. 1861 C. M. Yonge Young Step-Mother xvii. 233, I shall be most happy to introduce you into my atelier and show you my notes on the various Musées. 1885 H. James Little Tour in France xv. 102 Of course I had time to go to the Musée; the more so that I have a weakness for provincial museums. 1924 R. Fry Let. 27 June (1972) II. 553 I've..seen the much vaunted Musée here [sc. in Montpellier]. It's badly lit and worse hung. 1944 Amer. N. & Q. Aug. 72/2 In compiling material on the dime museum I could not help being struck with what seems to have been a showman's affectation—the almost universal use of musee for museum. 1970 B. Whelpton Painter's Paris vii. 107 The Musée Cernuschi..houses a superb collection of the art of China. |
2. musée imaginaire (‖ imaʒinɛr) [Fr., lit. ‘imaginary museum’]: an imaginary collection of all the works of human artifice.
| [1947 A. Malraux Musée Imaginaire 17 Un Musée imaginaire sans précédent s'est ouvert, qui va pousser à l'extrême l'intellectualisation commencée par l'incomplète confrontation des vrais musées; répondant à l'appel de ceux-ci, les arts plastiques ont inventé leur imprimerie.] 1959 Twentieth Century Oct. 262 He [sc. the culture-vulture]..haunts the limbo of the musée imaginaire, where all cultures and styles coexist. 1960 Ibid. Sept. 275 In Audenesque abstraction lies the power to keep us from..the object labelled and dismissed in the musée imaginaire. 1962 Listener 8 Mar. 431/1 We are no longer bewildered by the ‘matter’ of civilizations now that the musée imaginaire has accustomed us to the quick pounce on the artifact that illumines a lost world. 1967 Ibid. 7 Sept. 293/2 Dallagret has gone for..a kind of musée imaginaire sealed in polythene. |