mass - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

A mass (aggregation) of frog eggs

In late Middle English (circa 1400) as masse in the sense of "lump, quantity of matter", from Anglo-Norman masse, in Old French attested from the 11th century, via late Latin massa (“lump, dough”), from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “barley-cake, lump (of dough)”). The Greek noun may be derived from the verb μάσσω (mássō, “to knead”), ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *maǵ- (“to oil, knead”), although this is uncertain.[1] Doublet of masa. The sense of "a large number or quantity" arises circa 1580. The scientific sense is from 1687 (as Latin massa) in the works of Isaac Newton, with the first English use (as mass) occurring in 1704.

mass (countable and uncountable, plural masses)

  1. (physical) Matter, material.
    1. A quantity of matter cohering so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size.
      • 1718 [1704], Isaac Newton, Opticks, 2nd edition:
        And if it were not for theſe Principles the Bodies of the Earth, Planets, Comets, Sun, and all things in them would grow cold and freeze, and become inactive Maſſes ; […] .
      • 1821 [1582], George Buchanan, The History of Scotland, from the Earliest Accounts of that Nation, to the Reign of King James VI, volume 1 (in English), translation of Rerum Scoticarum Historia by an unnamed translator, page 133:
        […] and because a deep mass of continual sea is slower stirred to rage.
    2. (obsolete) Precious metal, especially gold or silver.
    3. (physics) A measure of the inertia of a mass of matter, one of four fundamental properties of matter. SI unit of mass: kilogram.
    4. (pharmacology) A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills.
      blue mass
    5. (medicine) A palpable or visible abnormal globular structure; a tumor.
    6. (bodybuilding) Excess body mass, especially in the form of muscle hypertrophy.
      • 1988, Steve Holman, “Christian Conquers Columbus”, in Ironman, volume 47, number 6, pages 28–34:
        After all, muscle maniacs go "ga ga" over mass no matter how it's presented.
  2. A large quantity; a sum.
    • 1829, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt, volume VIII:
      […] he hath discovered to me the way to five or six of the richest mines which the Spaniard hath, and whence all the mass of gold that comes into Spain in effect is drawn.
    • 1869, Alexander George Richey, Lectures on the History of Ireland: Down to A. D. 1534, page 204:
      For though he had spent a huge mass of treasure in transporting his army, […] .
    1. Bulk; magnitude; body; size.
    2. The principal part; the main body.
      • 1881, Thucydides, translated by Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides translated into English, volume 1, page 310:
        Night closed upon the pursuit, and aided the mass of the fugitives in their escape.
    3. A large body of individuals, especially persons.
      The mass of spectators didn't see the infraction on the field.
      A mass of ships converged on the beaches of Dunkirk.
      • 1970, “War Pigs”, in Paranoid, performed by Black Sabbath:
        Generals gathered in their masses / Just like witches at black masses
    4. (in the plural) The lower classes of persons.
      The masses are revolting.

(matter):

quantity of matter cohering together to make one body

large quantity; sum

bulk; magnitude; body; size

principal part

physics: quantity of matter which a body contains

pharmacy: medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump

bodybuilding: excess body mass

large body of individuals

lower classes

Translations to be checked

mass (third-person singular simple present masses, present participle massing, simple past and past participle massed)

  1. (ergative) To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to assemble.
    • 1829, William Burke, John Macnee, Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal: Before the High Court of Judiciary, William Hare:
      They would unavoidably mix up the whole of these declarations, and mass them together, although the Judge might direct the Jury not to do so.
    • 1857, Edward Henry Nolan, The Illustrated History of the War against Russia, Parts 93-111, page 432:
      Every bend on the hill had acted like a funnel to mass them together in this peculiar way.
    • 1869, H. P. Robinson, Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints on Composition and Chiariscuro for Photographers:
      Where there is too great a repetition of forms, light and shade will break them up or mass them together.

form or collect into a mass

mass (not generally comparable, comparative masser, superlative massest)

  1. Involving a mass of things; concerning a large quantity or number.
    There is evidence of mass extinctions in the distant past.
    • 1988, V. V. Zagladin, Vitaly Baskakov, International Working Class and Communist Movement: Historical Record, 1830s to Mid-1940s‎[1], page 236:
      The national liberation movement had not yet developed to a sufficiently mass scale.
    • 1989, Creighton Peden, Larry E. Axel (editors), God, Values, and Empiricism: Issues in Philosophical Theology‎[2], page 2:
      With perhaps unprecedented magnitude and clarity, Auschwitz brings theologians and philosophers face to face with the facts of suffering on an incredibly mass scale, with issues poignantly raised concerning the absence of divine intervention or the inadequacies of divine power or benevolence; […] .
    • 2010, John Horne, A Companion to World War I‎[3], page 159:
      The air arms did more than provide the warring nations with individual heroes, for their individual exploits occurred within the context of an increasingly mass aerial effort in a war of the masses.
  2. Involving a mass of people; of, for, or by the masses.
    Mass unemployment resulted from the financial collapse.
    • 1958, Child Welfare, volume 37, page 2:
      Every agency is sold on use of mass media today — or at least, it thinks it is — and what can be "masser" than television?
    • 1970, James Wilson White, The Sōkagakkai and Mass Society‎[4], page 3:
      While agreeing with Bell on the unlikelihood that any fully mass — in the sense of atomized and alienated — society has ever existed,5 I believe that at any point in time, in any social system, some elements may be characterized as "masses."
    • 1974, Edward Abraham Cohn, The Political Economy of Environmental Enhancement, page 91:
      Undoubtedly this is the case; at least it is "masser" than in Pinchot's time.
    • 1999 December, Sara Miles, “Rebel with a Cause”, in Out‎[5], page 132:
      But it also highlights the changes that have taken place in gay and AIDS activism, and the way that a formerly mass movement has been recast.
    • 2000 November 21, Howie Klein, “Queer as role models”, in The Advocate, number 825, page 9:
      The director didn't make the images up; they're there, but in putting that one slice of gay life into the massest of mass media — the amoral promiscuity, the drug and alcohol abuse, the stereotyped flamboyance and campiness, the bitchy queeniness and flimsy values — something very dangerous happens […]
    • 2001, Brian Moeran, Asian Media Productions, page 13:
      […] if only because it promises the ‘massest’ of mass markets.
    • 2004, John R. Hall, Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History‎[6], page 79:
      Finally, in the past century, secular culture itself has undergone a transition from predominantly folk styles to an overwhelmingly mass culture, […] .
    • 2007, Thomas Peele, Queer popular culture: literature, media, film, and television, page 11:
      As a right, we come to expect it, and that happens through the mass media, the massest of which, by far, is television.
    • 2025 July 13, Aaron Blake, “Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring”, in CNN‎[7]:
      The writing has been on the wall that Americans’ support for mass deportation was subject to all kinds of caveats and provisos.

involving a mass of things

involving a mass of people

  1. ^ Beekes, Etymological dictionary of Greek
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A priest celebrating mass (the Mass)

From Middle English messe, masse, from Old English mæsse (“the mass, church festival”) and Old French messe, from Vulgar Latin *messa (“Eucharist, dismissal”), from Late Latin missa, noun use of feminine past participle of classical Latin mittere (“to send”), from ite, missa est (“go, (the assembly) is dismissed”), reanalyzed as "go, [that] is the missa", last words of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.
Compare Dutch mis (“mass”), German Messe (“mass”), Danish messe (“mass”), Swedish mässa (“mass; expo”), Icelandic messa (“mass”). More at mission.

mass (plural masses)

  1. (Christianity) The Eucharist, now especially in Roman Catholicism.
  2. (Christianity) Celebration of the Eucharist.
  3. (Christianity, by extension) The main kind of church service, in some denominations.
    Hypernym: church service
    She went to mass every Sunday for many years, and when she retired, she took to going on some weekdays, too.
  4. (Christianity, usually as the Mass) The sacrament of the Eucharist.
  5. A musical setting of parts of the mass.

religion: Eucharist

religion: celebration of the Eucharist

religion: sacrament of the Eucharist

musical setting of parts of the mass

mass (third-person singular simple present masses, present participle massing, simple past and past participle massed)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To celebrate mass.

celebrate Mass

From Latin massa, from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza).

mass f

  1. mass, matter

Feminine ā-stem

| | singular | dual | plural | | | ----------- | -------------------------------------------- | ------ | - | | nominative | massL | — | — | | vocative | massL | — | — | | accusative | maissN | — | — | | genitive | maisseH | — | — | | dative | maissL | — | — |

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

mass

  1. goodly, handsome, beautiful

o/ā-stem

singular masculine feminine neuter
nominative mass mass mass
vocative maiss* mass**
accusative mass maiss
genitive maiss maisse maiss
dative mass maiss mass
plural masculine feminine/neuter
nominative maiss massa
vocative massumassa†
accusative massumassa†
genitive mass
dative massaib

*modifying a noun whose vocative is different from its nominative
**modifying a noun whose vocative is identical to its nominative
† not when substantivized

Mutation of mass

radical lenition nasalization
massalso mmass in h-prothesis environments masspronounced with /β̃-/ massalso mmass

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

mass c

  1. (Småland dialect) pronunciation spelling of mars (“March”)

From Proto-Finnic *maksa, from Proto-Uralic *mëksa.

mass (genitive massa, partitive massa)

  1. liver

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

From Proto-Finnic *maksu. Related to Estonian maks.

mass (genitive massu, partitive massu)

  1. tax, payment

This noun needs an inflection-table template.