musculous (muskulus)

[= F. musculeux = Sp. Pg. musculoso = It. muscoloso, musculoso, The uvous coat or iris of the eye hath a musculous power, and can dilate and contract that round hole in it called the pupil or sight of the eye. Ray , Works of Creation, ii. 2. Full of muscles; hence, strong; sinewy. [Obsolescent.] He had a tongue so musculous and subtile that he could twist it up into his nose. Swift , Tale of a Tub, xi. musculus (mus'kū-lus), n . [L.: see muscle1 .] 1. Pl. musculi (-li). In an at . , a muscle. Muscles were all formerly named in Latin, musculus being expre ed or implied their names, but few retain this designation, though the Latin form of the qualifying word or words may remain, as pectoral is , glutœus , etc. 2. [ cap.] In zool.: ( a ) A genus of mice, of which Mus musculus is the type: same as Mus. Rafi nesque, 1818. (b) A term in use among the conchologists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for various bivalve shells, as hym to be her lorde. Taking my lonely winding walk, I mus'd , And held accustom'd conference with my heart. Cowper , The Four Ages. And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. Whittier, Maud Muller. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come; 'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., iii. 1. 1. Yonder is ther an host of men, I musen who they bee. Captain Car (Child's Ballads, VI. 150). This may be a sufficient reason to us why we need no longer muse at the spreading of many idle traditions so soon after the Apostles. Milton , Prelatical Episcopacy. 3. To gaze meditatively. As y stood musynge on the moone. Political Poems , etc. (ed. Furnivall), p. 148. Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at her, And Lance lot later came and mused at her. Tennyson, Lance lot and Elaine. = Syn. 1. Meditate, reflect, etc. (see list under contem plate ), cogitate, ruminate, brood. II. trans. 1. To meditate on; think of re flectively. IMG:content-1124.png:[blocks in formation] museography uaa, part. μεμαώς, pres. mid. μῶσθαι ), strive after, seek after, attempt, long for, desire eagerly, covet, etc. The lit. meaning of μοῦσα is sometimes given as 'inventre (as ancient writers a umed), from the sense 'invent' inferred from the sense 'seek after'; but the term more prob. referred to the emotion or pa ion, the "fine frenzy," implied in the verb in the usual sense 'strive after' ( μεμαώς, excited), and in its derivatives, among which are counted μαίνεσθαι, be in a frenz frenzy, μανία, frenzy, madne , μάντις, a seer, prophet, etc.: see mania, Mantis. Hence museum, music, mosaic1, etc.] 1. In Gr. myth., one of the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who according to the earliest writers were godde es of memory, then inspiring godde es of song, and according to later ideas divinities presiding over the different kinds of poetry, and over the sciences and arts, while at the same time having as their especial province springs and limpid streams. Their number appears in the Homeric poems not to be fixed; later it seems to have been put at three, but afterward they are always spoken of as nine: Clio, the Muse of heroic exploits, or of history; Euterpe, of Dionysiac music and the double flute; Thalia, of gaiety, pastoral life, and comedy; Melpomene, of song and harmony, and of tragedy; Terpsichore, of choral dance and song; Erato, of erotic poetry and the lyre; Polymnia or Poly hymn i a, of the inspired and stately hymn; Urania, of astronomical and other celestial phenomena; and Cal liope, the chief of the Muses, of poetic inspiration, of eloquence, and of heroic or epic poetry. The Muses were intimately a ociated in legend and in art with Apollo, chief guardian and leader of their company, was called Musagetes. In this city [Cremona] did that famous Poet [Virgil] consecrate himself to the Muses . Coryat, Crudities, I. 140. Hence-2. [cap.orl.c.] An inspiring power; poetic inspiration: often spoken of and apostrophized by poets as a godde . O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! Shak., Hen. V., i., Prol. Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe,.. Sing, heavenly Muse . Milton, P. L., i. 6. 3. A poet; a bard. [Rare.] So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn; And, as he pa es, turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. Milton, Lycidas, 1. 19. muse3 (mus), n. [ As when a crew of gallants watch the wild muse of a Bore, Their dogs put in full crie, he rusheth on before. Chapman, Iliad, xi. 368. ( Nares.) The old prouerbe. "Tis as hard to find a hare without a muse as a woman without a scuse." Greene, Thieves Falling Out (Harl. Misc., VIII. 387). ( Nares.) Like to an hunter skilfull in marking the secret tracts and muces of wild beasts, [he] enclosed many a man within his lamentable net and toyle. Holland , tr. of Ammianus Mar cell in us (1609). ( Nares .) 21. A loophole; a means of escape. For these words still left a muse for the people to escape. N. Bacon. 3. The mouthpiece or wind-pipe of a bagpipe. Also written smuse.