myth

• mythe (rare or archaic)

From Ancient Greek μῦθος (mûthos, “word, humour, companion, speech, account, rumour, fable”). English since 1830.

• IPA^(key): /mɪθ/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɪθ

myth (plural myths)

1. A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; a sacred narrative regarding a god, a hero, the origin of the world or of a people, etc.
2. (uncountable) Such stories as a genre.

   Myth was the product of man's emotion and imagination, acted upon by his surroundings. (E. Clodd, Myths & Dreams (1885), 7, cited after OED)

3. A commonly-held but false belief, a common misconception; a fictitious or imaginary person or thing; a popular conception about a real person or event which exaggerates or idealizes reality.
   • 2016, John Oliver, “Opiods”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 27, written by Tim Carvell; Josh Gondelman; Dan Gurewitch; Jeff Maurer; Ben Silva; Will Tracy; Jill Twiss; Seena Vali; Julie Weiner, HBO, Warner Bros. Television:

     Okay, okay, okay… First, of course, babies feel pain. How the fuck did we ever think otherwise⁉ But more importantly, the fact that painkillers are addictive was not a myth. It’s like a book of Greek mythology featuring the stories of Zeus, Sisyphus, Oedipus and Yanni. Come on! That last one is very real and it cannot be dismissed.

4. A person or thing held in excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration based on popular legend

   Father Flanagan was legendary, his institution an American myth. (Tucson (Arizona) Citizen, 20 September 1979, 5A/3, cited after OED)

5. A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.
   • Ld. Lytton

     As for Mrs. Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years.

• mythic
• mythical
• mythicize
• mythify
• mythologem
• mythological
• mythology
• mythopoeia
• mythopoeic
• mythopoesis
• mythos
• pseudomyth

• legend

• myth in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• myth in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• "myth" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 210.

myth

1. Nasal mutation of byth.