different between posture vs mien

English

Etymology

From French, from Italian postura, from Latin posit?ra (“position, situation”)

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?p?st??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?p??st??/

Noun

posture (countable and uncountable, plural postures)

1. The way a person holds and positions their body.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus

     As if that whatsoever god who leads him / Were slily crept into his human powers, / And gave him graceful posture.

   • 1689 (or earlier), Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister

     […] walking in a most dejected posture, without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor;

   • 1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

     Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.

2. A situation or condition.
   • 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Deluge

     Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs […]

   • 1910, H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly

     Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His brain did not instantly rise to the new posture of things.

3. One's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.
   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

     ...that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

   • 1912, G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

     But it is not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate dissatisfaction.

4. (rare) The position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.
   • 1661, Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World

     The Moon beheld in any posture, in respect of the Sun and us, sheweth us its superficies ... always equally clear.

   • As for the guides, they were debarred from the pleasure of discourse, the one being placed in the van, and the other obliged to bring up the rear. / In this posture they travelled many hours, till they came into a wide and well-beaten road […]

Translations

Verb

posture (third-person singular simple present postures, present participle posturing, simple past and past participle postured)

1. (intransitive) to put one's body into a posture or series of postures, especially hoping that one will be noticed and admired

2. (intransitive) to pretend to have an opinion or a conviction

3. (transitive) To place in a particular position or attitude; to pose.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Howell to this entry?)

Translations

Anagrams

• -pterous, Proteus, Puertos, Stroupe, Troupes, petrous, pourest, pouters, proteus, septuor, spouter, store up, troupes

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?s.ty?/

Noun

posture f (plural postures)

1. posture, attitude
2. conduct, comportment

Descendants

• ? Romanian: postur?

Italian

Noun

posture f

1. plural of postura

Anagrams

• sputerò, stupore

English

Etymology

From French mine (whence also Danish mine and German Miene), appearance, perhaps from Breton min (“face of an animal”), or from Latin minio (“to redden”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi?n/
• Rhymes: -i?n
• Homophone: mean

Noun

mien (countable and uncountable, plural miens)

1. (countable, uncountable) Demeanor; facial expression or attitude, especially one which is intended by its bearer.
   • 1856, Joseph Turnley, The Language of the Eye, p. 111:

     Beauty, like all divine gifts, is everywhere to be seen by the eye of the faithful admirer of nature; and, like all spirits, she is scarcely to be described by words. Her countenance and mien, her path, her hue and carriage, often surpass expression, and soothe the enthusiast into reverie and silence.

   • 2015, Siobhan Roberts, John Horton Conway: the world’s most charismatic mathematician, in: The Guardian, July 23rd 2015

     Although still young at heart and head, he looks more and more like his old friend Archimedes, increasingly bearded and increasingly grey, with an otherworldly mien – a look that should earn him a spot in the online quiz featuring portraits of frumpy old men under the rubric “Prof or Hobo?”

2. (countable) A specific facial expression.

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Emin, Mine, mine

French

Etymology

From Middle French mien, from Old French meon, from Latin meum, the neuter of meus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mj??/

Adjective

mien (feminine singular mienne, masculine plural miens, feminine plural miennes)

1. (archaic) my

Derived terms

• le mien (“mine”)

See also

• mon, ma, mes

Further reading

• “mien” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• mine, miné

Old French

Etymology

Latin meum.

Adjective

mien

1. (stressed) my; mine

Usage notes

• chiefly used after an article (un, le, etc.) and before a noun. The noun may be omitted if clear from the context

Descendants

• French: mien

Pitcairn-Norfolk

Etymology

From English main.

Adjective

mien

1. main

Plautdietsch

Pronoun

mien

1. my

See also

• dien (your, thy)
• sien (his)
• mie (me)
• ons (our)
• onsa (us)

Further reading

• Plautdietsch Lexicon of 17,000 words

Saterland Frisian

Etymology

See the etymology of the main entry.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /min/

Determiner

mien

1. feminine of min
2. neuter of min
3. plural of min

References

• “mien” in Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch

Slovak

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?mi??n/

Noun

mien

1. genitive plural of mena

Noun

mien

1. genitive plural of meno

Vilamovian

Pronunciation

Noun

mien f

1. carrot

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian gem?ne, from Proto-West Germanic *gamain?, from Proto-Germanic *gamainiz, from Proto-Indo-European *?om-moynis. Cognate with German gemein, English mean, Gothic ???????????????????????????? (gamains) and Latin comm?nis.

Adjective

mien

1. common, communal
2. common, everyday
3. general

Inflection

Derived terms

• mienskip

Further reading

• “mien”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011