mythology

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A body or collection of myths belonging to a people and addressing their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes.
2. n. A body of myths associated with an event, individual, or institution: "A new mythology, essential to the . . . American funeral rite, has grown up” ( Jessica Mitford).
3. n. The field of scholarship dealing with the systematic collection and study of myths.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The science of myths; the science which investigates myths with a view to their interpretation and to discover the degree of relationship existing between the myths of different peoples; also, the description or history of myths. The study of surviving myths among European nations and of the imperfectly developed mythic systems of barbarous or savage races is usually accounted part of the study of folklore.
2. n. A system of myths or fables in which are embodied the convictions of a people in regard to their origin, divinities, heroes, founders, etc. See myth.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable and uncountable The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes.
2. n. countable and uncountable A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.
3. n. countable and uncountable Pervasive elements of a fictional universe that resemble a mythological universe.
4. n. uncountable The systematic collection and study of myths.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The science which treats of myths; a treatise on myths.
2. n. A body of myths; esp., the collective myths which describe the gods of a heathen people.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. myths collectively; the body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person
2. n. the study of myths