Definitions of myth on the Web: - Democratic Underground

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Definitions of myth on the Web:

Definitions of myth on the Web:

a traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a people
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Myth is a series of real-time strategy computer games, specifically, Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth II: Soulblighter, and Myth III: The Wolf Age. The latter was developed by Mumbo Jumbo Software and published by Take 2 Interactive, the former developed and self-published by Bungie Software, now a division of Microsoft under the name Bungie Studios. Upon Bungie's sale to Microsoft in 2000, Bungie sold the rights to the Myth franchise to Take 2 Interactive.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_(computer_game)

A myth is often thought to be a lesson in story form which has deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for preliterate cultures, who preserve and cherish the wisdom of their elders through oral traditions by the use of skilled story tellers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth

An anonymous tale emerging from the traditional beliefs of a culture or social unit. Myths use supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. They may also explain cosmic issues like creation and death. Collections of myths, known as mythologies, are common to all cultures and nations, but the best-known myths belong to the Norse, Roman, and Greek mythologies. A famous myth is the story of Arachne, an arrogant young girl who challenged a goddess, Athena, to a weaving contest; when the girl won, Athena was enraged and turned Arachne into a spider, thus explaining the existence of spiders. (Compare with Fable
www.galegroup.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_im.htm

An unverifiable story based on a religious belief. The characters of myths are gods and goddesses, or the offspring of the mating of gods or godesses and humans. Some myths detail the creation of the earth, while others may be about love, adventure, trickery, or revenge. In all cases, it is the gods and goddesses who control events, while humans may be aided or victimized. It is said that the creation of myths were the method by which ancient, superstitious humans attempted to account for natural or historical phenomena. In Homer's, "The Odyssey," the Greek hero, Odysseus, is thwarted in
www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/terms/2terms.html

Legendary narrative, usually of gods and heroes, or a theme that expresses the ideology of a culture.
odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/LIT/chap10.htm

A fictional story to explain the origin of some person, place or thing. Usage of myth.
www.ferndale.wednet.edu/nb/facts/maps/baker/glossary.htm

like allegory, myth usually is symbolic and extensive, including an entire work or story. Though it no longer is necessarily specific to or pervasive in a single culture—individual authors may now be said to create myths—there is still a sense that myth is communal or cultural, while the symbolic can often be private or personal. Close Window
www.wwnorton.com/introlit/glossary.htm

something not true, fiction, or falsehood. A truth disguised and distorted.
www.carm.net/atheism/terms.htm

(mith): any story that attempts to explain how the world was created or why the world is the way that it is. Myths are stories that are passed on from generation to generation and normally involve religion. MH Abram refers to myths as a “religion in which we no longer believe.” Most myths were first spread by oral tradition and then were written down in some literary form. Many ancient literary works are, in fact, myths as myths appear in every ancient culture of the planet. For example you can find them in ethnological tales, fairy tales as well as
www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/allam/general/glossary.htm

An improvable story, almost always including incredible or miraculous events, that has no specific reference point or time in history.
www.organtransplants.org/glossary.html

A narrative in which some characters are superhuman beings who do things that "happen only in stories"; hence, a conventionalized or stylized narrative not fully adapted to plausibility or "realism."
www.sil.org/~radneyr/humanities/litcrit/gloss.htm

Stories that explain the origins of current phenomena. They may be believed literally or figuratively, or as metaphorically moral truths about the workings of the world.
www.lpb.org/programs/swappingstories/glossary.html

A popular belief that is false or unsupported by facts.
www.plimoth.org/learn/history/glossary.asp

Mythology An occult tale or mystic legend; the modern use varies from an allegorical story to pure fiction. Myths are after all ancient history and are built on facts or on a substratum of fact, as has proved true in the case of Troy and Crete. A symbolic record of archaic truths, universally prevalent among mankind, as in such stories as that of the Ark, which are almost universally discoverable and identical not in detail but in essential underlying features among the most widely sundered peoples. Myths contain the universal keys which
www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/mp-mz.htm

a common story or legend. Although the word "myth" means untrue to some people, to others the word embodies a different kind of "truth" which expresses their deepest and truest values, fears, hopes, and beliefs.
www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Holman/english/glossary.php3

a common or shared historical experience
oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html

All plots in Greek tragedy were taken from their myths. Poets could not invent their own plots, but could alter the myths according to their needs.
lilt.ilstu.edu/drjclassics/ih/IH51/Greeks/DramaTerms.htm

A myth is neither historically true or false. Myths transmit truth that cannot be understood apart from the story.
www.thesacredheart.com/dictnary.htm

A tale containing gods and goddesses and told to explain nature and science.
www.gaston.k12.nc.us/schools/highland/class/baron/eoctermsexcel.htm

For some myth is seen as a device to cloak or conceal a knowlable reality (ie ìfacts evaporate into mythî). For others, it is the way the unknowable can be understood. Claude Levi-Strauss wrote that a myth is a device to think with -- a way in which reality is classified and organized. Roland Barthes stated that a myth is a type of speech, so that ìeverything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse.î For Barthes, this historically-produced, ìdepoliticizedî speech gives meaning and form to reality. Thus, instead of ìcloakingî reality, a myth is
www.umass.edu/polsci725/Glossary.html

A story, a theme, an object, or a character regarded as embodying an aspect of a culture; the creation stories in Genesis 1-3 may be called myths, not in the sense that they are factually false, but because they embody core beliefs of Israelite culture. See Chapter 1 Creation, Chapter 1 Divine-Human Intermarriage.
www.hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/GLOSSARY/M.HTM

usually a traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief or natural phenomenon. (Instructor's note: notice the relationship between this word and "archetype" and "symbol").
www.artsymbolism.com/definitions.html

an anonymous story designed to explain the mysteries of life, generally with larger than life awe-inspiring characters.
www.ed.psu.edu/americareads/Resources/glossary.htm

A story of an intracosmic ground: taking one thing in the cosmos as the ground of being of another.
www.salamander.com/~wmcclain/ev-glossary.html

A narrative that tells of origins--not necessarily "an untrue story." We often undertake to understand myths by understanding the patterns and structures by which they organize their material and give it meaning.
jamesfaulconer.byu.edu/definitions.htm

"stories drawn from a society's history that have acquired through persistent usage the power of symbolizing that society's ideology and of dramatizing its moral consciousness--with all the complexities and contradictions that consciousness may contain." (Slotkin 5).
web.nwe.ufl.edu/~gulmer/s03/zwhalen2/definitions.html

a story or body of stories based on tradition or legend, originating in the oral history of a preliterate society and incorporating its beliefs about the origins of the world, the causes of natural events, and the origins of the society's customs and practices.
www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/soc_studies/nativea/vocab/

I would like to hear from other DU'ers what their definition of myth is and how it differs from the above definitions, if at all.