Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to the making of myths.
  • adjective Serving to create or engender myths; productive in mythmaking.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Giving rise to myths; pertaining to the creation of myth.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Greek mūthopoios, composer of fiction, from mūthopoiein, to relate a story : mūthos, story + poiein, to make; see kwei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Hellenistic Ancient Greek μυθοποιία ("mythopoeia") +‎ -ic.

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Examples

  • When Nick Hornby called Drooker's work "mythopoeic," he wasn't kidding.

    SFGate: Top News Stories Ari Messer 2010

  • Elephantiasis, Hydro-phobia, and Penal Servitude_), without once experiencing the "aching void" which is filled by such words as "mythopoeic," and "anthropomorphism."

    Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Hall Caine 1892

  • During the story another character attempts to refute him by saying about mythopoeic archetypes,

    Archive 2010-05-01 Blue Tyson 2010

  • It seems like Lindsay hits on the sparse but mythopoeic style that MacDonald had.

    A Very, Very Happy Day « Unknowing 2009

  • You've heard in thirty years there'll be no more fish in the ocean and yet, today, orca pods roll on their hunt single-eyeing us, five of them, black humps, a mythopoeic serpent undulating, penumbrating, honing in for the slow deadly bite.

    Unfathomable Mammals Marc Vincenz 2011

  • The poet does this in an attempt to give their scientific experiment “meaning” by describing it with mythopoeic archetypes.

    Archive 2010-05-01 Blue Tyson 2010

  • Others say that certain demographic changes shifted the balance of power away from angst and viscera towards scratching the mythopoeic urge to immerse oneself in a fantasy landscape.

    GUEST REVIEW: Jonathan McCalmont on Black Static #15 2010

  • Others say that certain demographic changes shifted the balance of power away from angst and viscera towards scratching the mythopoeic urge to immerse oneself in a fantasy landscape.

    March 2010 2010

  • All three are rich with the sort of mythopoeic imagery that should particularly appeal to sf/fantasy readers, and Stevens's "The Man With the Blue Guitar" can be read, I think, as a sort of passionate defense of literary approaches derided by Realists.

    MIND MELD: Non-Genre Books for Genre Readers 2009

  • Ian commented that the story was “wonderfully descriptive and powerful and mythopoeic.”

    2009 Million Writers Award sfawardswatch 2009

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