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Contemplative vs Muse - What's the difference?

contemplative | muse |

As nouns the difference between contemplative and muse

is that contemplative is someone who has dedicated themselves to religious contemplation while muse is .

As an adjective contemplative

is inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative.

contemplative

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Inclined to contemplate; introspective and thoughtful; meditative.
  • * 1873 , (John Stuart Mill), Autobiography , Chapter 5:
    • Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and contemplative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who are intrinsically far more poets than he.
  • Pertaining especially to a contemplative Roman Catholic religious or one of the contemplative Roman Catholic religious orders.
  • * 1870 , (Charles Dickens), The Mystery of Edwin Drood , Chapter 3:
    • Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contemplative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low ceilings of the many chambers of their House [...] may be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any), but constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton's half-yearly accounts.
  • Relating to, or having the power of, contemplation.
    • contemplative faculties

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who has dedicated themselves to religious contemplation.
  • * 2009 , (Karen Armstrong), The Case for God , Vintage 2010, p. 112:
    • The contemplative must not expect exotic feelings, visions or heavenly voices; these did not come from God but from his own fevered imagination and would merely distract him from his true objective [...].
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    muse

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) muse, from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (s)
  • A source of inspiration.
  • (archaic) A poet; a bard.
    • (Milton)
    Usage notes
    The plural musae'' can also be found, though it is much rarer than ''muses .
    Related terms
    * museum * music

    Etymology 2

    First attested in 1340. From (etyl) muser.

    Verb

    (mus)
  • To become lost in thought, to ponder.
  • To say (something) with due consideration or thought.
  • * (seeCites)
  • To think on; to meditate on.
  • * (rfdate) Thomson
    • Come, then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=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.}}
  • To wonder at.
    • (Shakespeare)
    Synonyms
    * See also
    Related terms
    * muser * musing

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of musing; a period of thoughtfulness.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , I.xii:
    • still he sate long time astonished / As in great muse , ne word to creature spake.
  • * 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia , Faber & Faber 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 416:
    • He fell into a muse and pulled his upper lip.

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) musse. See muset.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • 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)

    Anagrams

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