Definitions

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

  • An ancient Greek city in the northeast Peloponnesus that flourished during the Bronze Age as the center of an early civilization. According to legend, at one time Agamemnon was its king.

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

  • proper noun An ancient Greek city in the NE Peloponnesus on the plain of Argos, inhabited since about 4000 BCE

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an ancient city is southern Greece; center of the Mycenaean civilization during the late Bronze Age

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek Μυκῆναι (Mukēnai), the name of the Ancient Greek city, from Μυκήνη (Mukēnē), a Nymph in Greek mythology who lived around Mycenae.

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Examples

  • I grew up in Mycenae, Wisconsin, just west of Elm Grove.

    The Death of James A. Garfield « A Fly in Amber 2008

  • If you will recall, a deer exploded as I was trying to factor quadratic algebra in Mycenae, Wisconsin.

    The Death of James A. Garfield « A Fly in Amber 2008

  • Like I said, I grew up in Mycenae, Wisconsin where the Mycenae Boosters insisted that the doings of the ancient gods and heroes be taught in elementary school.

    The Death of James A. Garfield « A Fly in Amber 2008

  • As for the destruction of Pylos and Mycenae, which is the point immediately at issue, Vincent Desborough writes in The Last Mycenaeans and Their Successors (1964): "What we can, I think be reasonably sure of is that the destruction at Tiryns and Pylos was contemporaneous with the second disaster at Mycenae."

    Competent Authorities Mylonas, George E. 1967

  • He took a good long last look around at the scene in space above an unknown planet or­biting a sun men had dubbed Mycenae two hundred light years from Earth.

    Behold the Stars Bulmer, Kenneth, 1921- 1965

  • So he was glad to exchange with another king who ruled over two rich cities, not far away, called Mycenae and Tiryns.

    Old Greek Stories James Baldwin 1883

  • Thus they thrice call Mycenae "golden," though, in the changed economic conditions of their own period,

    Homer and His Age Andrew Lang 1878

  • So do I. Heaney, Nobel laureate in literature for 1995, digs more deeply into the mythic past in this poem than did Seferis, Nobel laureate in 1963, in "Mycenae," where he focuses on the inescapable burden of the past on the Greeks of today.

    Insight: Poetic Visions of the Past 2000

  • He noted that I had cited in the previous article George Seferis 'poem "Mycenae," and commented that he also much admired Seamus Heaney's "Mycenae Lookout."

    Insight: Poetic Visions of the Past 2000

  • Their poetic allusions to archaeology can be intensely personal and spiritual, as in one of my favorite poems by George Seferis, who manages in "Mycenae" to evoke not only the citadel of Agamemnon, with its massive stone walls embraced by twin peaks, looking across the plain to Argos, but also the personal burden of knowledge of the past.

    Insight: The Muse Within Us 1999

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