Skip to main content
PlainSpell

Mycenaean

My·ce·nae·an/ˌmaɪ.sɪˈniːən/adjective, noun

Mycenaean is an adjective meaning “Of or relating to ancient Mycenae or its inhabitants” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-Y-C-E-N-A-E-A-N and has 4 syllables (My·ce·nae·an), and it appears about once in every 5 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does Mycenaean mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Of or relating to ancient Mycenae or its inhabitants.

  2. 2

    Of or relating to the early Greek civilization that spread its influence from Mycenae to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Central Europe from about 2800 to 1100 B.C.E., divided into three periods: Early Helladic (c. 2800–2000 B.C.E), Middle Helladic (c. 2000–1500 B.C.E), and Late Helladic (c. 1500–1100 B.C.E)

  3. 3

    Of or relating to the Ancient Greek dialect written in the Linear B syllabary.

noun

  1. 1

    A native or inhabitant of Mycenae.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce Mycenaean?

  • /ˌmaɪ.sɪˈniːən/

Mycenaean has 4 syllables, split My·ce·nae·an in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Mycenaean.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of Mycenaean

  • Mycenean
  • Mycenaeans plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is Mycenaean?

Mycenaean appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 67,454th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Mycenaean in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmycénien (relating to Mycenae), Mycénien, Mycénienne (a native of Mycenae)
Germanmykenisch (relating to Mycenae)
Portuguesemicénico, micênico (relating to Mycenae)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does Mycenaean come from?

From Mycenae + -an.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).