Meanings
nounmuseme (plural musemes)
plural musemes
- entertainmentA minimal unit of musical meaning, analogous to a morpheme in linguistics.
Having established extramusical 'meaning' at the micro level, one should proceed to the explanation of the ways musemes are combined, simultaneously and successively.
2000, Richard Middleton, Reading Pop : Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music
Origin
Brought to popularity by Philip Tagg, derived from the work of Charles Seeger.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
museme. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/museme
MLA
“museme.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/museme. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “museme,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/museme.
Source: museme on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.