MAGNUM OPUS • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Magnum opus

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/mˈægnəm ˈoʊpəs/ Listen

noun

magnum opus n.

A great work of art or literature.

The greatest work or achievement of a particular artist, writer, or other individual. "Inspired by this milieu, (Max Stirner) wrote his magnum opus The Ego and Its Own, which was published in November 1844."

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Etymology of 'Magnum opus'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Magnum opus" Quotes from Famous Books

... Absolute in the Infinite, in the Indefinite, and in the Finite, this is the Magnum Opus, the Great Work of the Sages, which Hermes called the ...

— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Ten Princes (the Dasa Kumara Carita), and of Bhartri-hari's Apophthegms. Colebrooke records his debt to Carey for carrying through the Serampore press the Sanskrit dictionary of Amara Sinha, the oldest native lexicographer, with an English interpretation and annotations. But the magnum opus of Carey was what in 1811 he described as A Universal Dictionary of the Oriental Languages, derived from the Sanskrit, of which that language is to be the groundwork. The object for which he had been long collecting the materials of this mighty work was ...

— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... directly or indirectly in his career. And there are some books which he will wish to master, as if he were to be subjected to an examination on them. As to these he will be guided by strong inclination and possibly with a view to the subject of his magnum opus; but if these considerations be absent and if the work has not been done in the university, I cannot too strongly recommend the mastery of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" and Bryce's "Holy Roman Empire." Gibbon merits close study because his is undoubtedly ...

— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... understood. people who can read long books will find it in Frazer's Golden Bough. Simpler folk will find it in the peasant's song of John Barleycorn, now made accessible to our drawingroom amateurs in the admirable collections of Somersetshire Folk Songs by Mr. Cecil Sharp. From Frazer's magnum opus you will learn how the same primitive logic which makes the Englishman believe today that by eating a beefsteak he can acquire the strength and courage of the bull, and to hold that belief in the face of the most ignominious defeats by vegetarian wrestlers ...

— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... it is a crushing blow," said the old man. "That is my MAGNUM OPUS—the pile of papers on the side table yonder. It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundations of revealed religion. With my enfeebled health ...

— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle