Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

maecenas

/mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.82 in modern English

Syllables: Mae-ce-nas
IPA: /mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/

12

Scrabble Score

8

Letters

3

Syllables

6

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.

Example Sentences

"[…]thou art his deare and louing friend, good and gracious Lord and maſter, Mecenas,[…]"
"After having enjoyed a very ſhort private audience in the cloſet, our young gentleman was ſhewn into another room, where half a dozen of his fellow-adherents waited for their Mæcenas, who in a few minutes appeared, with a moſt gracious aſpect, received the compliments of the morning, and ſat down to breakfaſt, in the midſt of them, without any further ceremony."
"The government[…]maintained one of the largest armies in Europe; it developed what became, by the 1780s, a navy as big as the British; and it played the role of cultural Maecenas."
"The contemporary art space created within the Palais de Tokyo (also home to the Paris Museum of Modern Art) is a pretty sad example of government as Maecenas."

Etymology

Derived from Middle French mecenas, and its source, Latin Maecēnās (“literary patron”), from the name of Gaius Maecenas (c. 70–8 BCE), Roman statesman and patron of Horace and Virgil.

Origin

Source language: Middle French

Word Breakdown

Root: mecenas, Maecēnās

Regional Pronunciation

British English: /mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/

Inflected Forms

Maecenases (plural) Mæcenas (alternative, archaic)

Derived Forms

Maecenasship Maecenatism

Rhymes With

venus genus venous subgenus greenness cleanness arteriovenous saphenous transvenous tweeness scalenus endovenous

Questions

How do you pronounce maecenas?: The recorded pronunciation is /mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/.
What does maecenas mean?: A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
Where does maecenas come from?: It is traced to Middle French.

How to pronounce maecenas

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “maecenas”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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