muse

noun

1. Of a person: a source of inspiration.

   “Yoko Ono was John Lennon's wife, lover, and muse.”

2. (archaic)A poet; a bard.

   “My toung-tide Muſe in manners holds her ſtill, While comments of your praiſe richly compil'd, Reſerue their Character with goulden quill, And precious phraſe by all the Muſes fil’d.”

   “So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destined urn”

3. An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.

   “still he sate long time astonished / As in great muse, ne word to creature spake.”

   “And with this Alan fell into a muse, and for a long time sate^([sic]) very sad and silent.”

   “He fell into a muse and pulled his upper lip.”

4. A gap or hole in a hedge, fence, etc. through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.

   “Find a hare without a muse. (old proverb)”

5. One of the nine Ancient Greek deities of the arts.

   “And hears the Muſes in a ring, Ay round about Joves Altar ſing.”

verb

1. (intransitive)To become lost in thought, to ponder.
2. (transitive)To say (something) with due consideration or thought.

   “When I asked about her affinity for playing self-obsessed artists, O’Hara mused: “Maybe I’m just trying to get it out of my system. I’m so afraid to be like that.””

   “For quotations using this term, see Citations:muse.”

3. (transitive)To think on; to meditate on.

   “Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.”

   “It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: […]; […]; or perhaps to muse on the irrelevance of the borders that separate nation states and keep people from understanding their shared environment.”

4. (transitive)To wonder at.

   “Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed; for what I will, I will, and there an end.”

name

1. A city in Shan State, Myanmar.