An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (although less often for actors). "Artiste" (French for artist) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. Use of the term "artist" to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like used in criticism. Dictionary definitions The Oxford English Dictionary defines the older broad meanings of the term "artist": A learned person or Master of Arts. One who pursues a practical science, traditionally medicine, astrology, alchemy, chemistry. A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice. A follower of a manual art, such as a mechanic. One who makes their craft a fine art. One who cultivates one of the fine arts – traditionally the arts presided over by the muses. History of the term The Greek word "", often translated as "art," implies mastery of any sort of craft. The adjectival Latin form of the word, "", became the source of the English words technique, technology, and technical. In Greek culture, each of the nine Muses oversaw a different field of human creation: Calliope (the 'beautiful of speech'): chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry Clio (the 'glorious one'): muse of history Erato (the 'amorous one'): muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs Euterpe (the 'well-pleasing'): muse of music and lyric poetry Melpomene (the 'chanting one'): muse of tragedy Polyhymnia or Polymnia (the '[singer] of many hymns'): muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing, and rhetoric Terpsichore (the '[one who] delights in dance'): muse of choral song and dance Thalia (the 'blossoming one'): muse of comedy and bucolic poetry Urania (the 'celestial one'): muse of astronomy No muse was identified with the visual arts of painting and sculpture. In ancient Greece sculptors and painters were held in low regard, somewhere between freemen and slaves, their work regarded as mere manual labour. The word art derives from the Latin "" (stem art-), which, although literally defined means "skill method" or "technique", also conveys a connotation of beauty.