museum
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A building where interesting objects from art, history or science are kept and shown to the public.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
myoozeeuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
mjuˈziəm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific or historical or artistic value
A building or institution dedicated to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, cultural or artistic value.
verb
ambitransitive
To place in a museum.
intransitivecolloquial
To visit museums.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific or historical or artistic value
Used this way, museum is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in science and historical writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Historical writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use museum
- “We spent the afternoon exploring ancient artifacts at the natural history museum.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Depository / building
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An art museum that is a famous tourist attraction in Paris.
A tank or pool or bowl filled with water for keeping live fish and underwater animals.
A museum that collects and displays objects having scientific interest.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.