Word.ws English Dictionary

Maecenas

Syllables: Mae·ce·nas/mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/

Maecenas noun: a generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.

Noun

Maecenas (plural Maecenases)

  1. A generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
    • […]thou art his deare and louing friend, good and gracious Lord and maſter, Mecenas,[…]1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Loue of men, which varies as his obiects, profitable, pleaſant, honeſt.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John...
    • 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...1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter CIII, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 126

Maecenas meaning in Vietnamese

Maecenas in Vietnamese

a generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art
Mạnh Thường quân

Examples of Maecenas in a sentence

  • 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.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon, Penguin Books, published 2003, page 329:
  • 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.2010 November 5, Katherine Knorr, “For November, Paris Is the City of Lenses”, in The International Herald Tribune, →ISSN:

Forms of Maecenas

pluralMaecenases
alternative form (archaic)Mæcenas

Origin of Maecenas

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.

Words formed from Maecenas

Words that rhyme with Maecenas

21 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about Maecenas

What does Maecenas mean?
Maecenas means a generous benefactor; specifically, a patron of literature or art.
What is Maecenas in Vietnamese?
Maecenas in Vietnamese is Mạnh Thường quân. See Maecenas meaning in Vietnamese.
How do you use Maecenas in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is Maecenas?
Maecenas is a noun.
How do you pronounce Maecenas?
Maecenas is pronounced /mʌɪˈsiː.nəs/ (UK).
What is the plural of Maecenas?
The plural of Maecenas is Maecenases.

Words near Maecenas in the dictionary

  1. Mae Hong Son
  2. Mae West
  3. Mae Wests
  4. maebari
  5. Maebashi
  6. Maecenas
  7. Maecenases
  8. Maecenasship
  9. Maecenasships
  10. maecenatism
  11. maechi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Maecenas (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Maecenas.wav.

Cite this entry: “Maecenas.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maecenas. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.