muse

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To be absorbed in one's thoughts; engage in meditation.
2. v. To consider or say thoughtfully: mused that it might take longer to drive than walk.
3. n. A state of meditation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To ponder; meditate; reflect continuously and in silence; be in a brown study.
2. To be astonished; be surprised; wonder.
3. To gaze meditatively.
4. Synonyms Meditate, reflect, etc. (see list under contemplate), cogitate, ruminate, brood.
5. To meditate on; think of reflectively.
6. To wonder at.
7. n. The act of musing; meditation; reverie; absent-mindedness; contemplative thought.
8. n. Wonder; surprise.
9. n. In Greek myth, one of the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who according to the earliest writers were goddesses of memory, then inspiring goddesses 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 Polyhymnia, of the inspired and stately hymn; Urania, of astronomical and other celestial phenomena; and Calliope, the chief of the Muses, of poetic inspiration, of eloquence, and of heroic or epic poetry. The Muses were intimately associated in legend and in art with Apollo, who, as the chief guardian and leader of their company, was called Musagetes.
10. n. [cap. or lowercase] An inspiring power; poetic inspiration: often spoken of and apostrophized by poets as a goddess.
11. n. A poet; a bard.
12. n. An opening in a fence through which a hare or other game is accustomed to pass. Also muset.
13. n. A loophole; a means of escape.
14. n. The mouthpiece or wind-pipe of a bagpipe. Also written smuse.

Wiktionary

1. n. A source of inspiration.
2. n. A poet.
3. n. An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.
4. v. To become lost in thought, to ponder.
5. v. To say (something) with due consideration or thought.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A gap or hole in a hedge, hence, wall, or the like, through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.
2. n. One of the nine goddesses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who presided over song and the different kinds of poetry, and also the arts and sciences; -- often used in the plural. At one time certain other goddesses were considered as muses.
3. n. A particular power and practice of poetry; the inspirational genius of a poet.
4. n. A poet; a bard.
5. v. To think closely; to study in silence; to meditate.
6. v. To be absent in mind; to be so occupied in study or contemplation as not to observe passing scenes or things present; to be in a brown study.
7. v. To wonder.
8. v. To think on; to meditate on.
9. v. To wonder at.
10. n. Contemplation which abstracts the mind from passing scenes; absorbing thought; hence, absence of mind; a brown study.
11. n. Wonder, or admiration.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the source of an artist's inspiration
2. n. in ancient Greek mythology any of 9 daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne; protector of an art or science
3. v. reflect deeply on a subject