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Maecenas. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Maecenas, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
Maecenas in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
Maecenas you have here. The definition of the word
Maecenas will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
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English
Etymology
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.
Pronunciation
Noun
Maecenas (plural Maecenases)
- A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:[…] thou art his dear and loving friend, good and gracious Lord and Master, his Maecenas.
1751, Smollett, chapter 103, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., , →OCLC, page 367:ur 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.
2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 329: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.
2010 November 5, Katherine Knorr, “For November, Paris Is the City of Lenses”, in The International Herald Tribune, →ISSN: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.
Derived terms
Translations
a generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art
Anagrams
Latin
Etymology
Ultimately from Etruscan.
Pronunciation
Proper noun
Maecēnās m (genitive Maecēnātis); third declension
- A Roman cognomen — famously held by:
- Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, a Roman patron
- (by extension) Maecenas (any person who is a generous benefactor, particularly of the arts)
Declension
Third-declension noun.
Descendants