Definitions

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

  • noun A building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A building or part of a building appropriated as a repository of things that have an immediate relation to literature, art, or science; especially and usually, a collection of objects in natural history, or of antiquities or curiosities.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A repository or a collection of natural, scientific, or literary curiosities, or of works of art.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Anthrenus.

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

  • noun A building or institution dedicated to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, cultural or artistic value.

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

  • noun a depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific or historical or artistic value

Etymologies

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

[Latin Mūsēum, from Greek Mouseion, shrine of the Muses, from Mouseios, of the Muses, from Mousa, Muse; see men- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin mūsēum ("library, study"), from Ancient Greek Μουσεῖον (Mouseîon), shrine of the Muses (Μοῦσα (Moûsa)).

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Examples

  • The term museum was coined because the structure was dedicated to the seven muses, but it was really a research institute, the first state-run research institute in the world.

    Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001

  • The term museum was coined because the structure was dedicated to the seven muses, but it was really a research institute, the first state-run research institute in the world.

    Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001

  • The term museum was coined because the structure was dedicated to the seven muses, but it was really a research institute, the first state-run research institute in the world.

    Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001

  • The term "museum quality" was bandied about along with other dubious labels.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • In New York City, the Rubin museum is showing a collection of work from emerging Tibetan artists.

    Max Eternity: Buddha 2010: Contemporary Tibetan Art in New York Max Eternity 2010

  • In New York City, the Rubin museum is showing a collection of work from emerging Tibetan artists.

    Max Eternity: Buddha 2010: Contemporary Tibetan Art in New York Max Eternity 2010

  • In that slide show, for example, we learn that originally "the term 'museum' meant a spot dedicated to the muses."

    NYT > Home Page By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN 2012

  • They hide out in the restrooms when the museum is about to close, and spend the night inside, bathing in the fountain where they take some of the “wishing coins” to help buy food.

    2010 March 14 « The BookBanter Blog 2010

  • They hide out in the restrooms when the museum is about to close, and spend the night inside, bathing in the fountain where they take some of the “wishing coins” to help buy food.

    “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankeweiler (Atheneum Press, 1967) « The BookBanter Blog 2010

  • The proposed $5 million, 135 seat Planetarium (pictured above) to be connected to the museum is also on hold.

    Archive 2009-10-01 2009

Comments

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  • Pro and mollusque, I thought of you when I read this book review.

    September 17, 2008

  • "With a kind of intellectual alchemy, relics that were once considered rubbish became precious collectibles. As traveling became more popular in the seventeenth century, going to see collections open to visitors became an integral part of travelers' itineraries. One enthusiast covering the breadth of Western Europe located 968 collections of antiquities alone. ... Bestiaries, herbariums, and lapidary exhibits abounded."

    --Joyce Appleby, Shores of Knowledge: New World Discoveries and the Scientific Imagination (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013), p. 100

    December 28, 2016

  • A place where people muse; a place of musage.

    December 8, 2017