mythology

Noun

mythology (countable and uncountable, plural mythologies)

1. The collection of myths of a people, concerning the origin of the people, history, deities, ancestors and heroes.
   • Now the great obstacle in tracing the identity of any of the basic forms of worship lies in the vast number of names which appear in the ancient idolatries and mythologies, creating the illusion of a miscellany of gods, whereas many of these different names refer to the same deity. Thus the sun has...1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 20
   • The solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralysing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll.2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2020, page 55
2. A similar body of myths concerning an event, person or institution.
   • This program to distinguish Austria from Germany was important to building a new Austria, but it also indirectly contributed to victim mythology by implying that participation in the Nazi war of conquest was antithetical to Austrian identity.2003, Peter Utgaard, Remembering & Forgetting Nazism: Education, National Identity, and the Victim Myth in Postwar Austria, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page x
3. Pervasive elements of a fictional universe that resemble a mythological universe.
   • This tongue-in-cheek episode is especially fun for people who don’t take their “X-Files” mythology seriously.2000 April 28, Caryn James (?), As Scheherazade Was Saying . . ., in The New York Times, page E31, reproduced in The New York Times Television Reviews 2000, Routledge (2001), page 198
4. The set of misconceptions and false attitudes that are held about something and contribute to its perception.
   • Straight people who do not know, or do not know that they know, any gays, can accept all the mythology about us that is paramount in the propaganda of our enemies.1981 April 4, Donald Vining, “Straight Talk”, in Gay Community News, page 5
5. (uncountable) The systematic collection and study of myths.