mass
Forms
- Plural
- masses
- Comparative
- masser
- Superlative
- massest
- present (v1)
- mass
- past (v2)
- massed
- past participle (v3)
- massed
- present participle
- massing
- 3rd person singular
- masses
Definitions
1.Matter, material.
- After all, muscle maniacs go "ga ga" over mass no matter how it's presented.
- Right in the midst the Goddesse selfe did stand / Upon an altar of some costly masse […].
2.A large quantity; a sum.
- A mass of ships converged on the beaches of Dunkirk.
- The mass of spectators didn't see the infraction on the field.
- Night closed upon the pursuit, and aided the mass of the fugitives in their escape.
3.The Eucharist, now especially in Roman Catholicism.
4.Celebration of the Eucharist.
1.To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to assemble.
- Every bend on the hill had acted like a funnel to mass them together in this peculiar way.
- Where there is too great a repetition of forms, light and shade will break them up or mass them together.
- 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.
1.Involving a mass of things; concerning a large quantity or number.
- There is evidence of mass extinctions in the distant past.
- The national liberation movement had not yet developed to a sufficiently mass scale.
- 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.
- Undoubtedly this is the case; at least it is "masser" than in Pinchot's time.
- As a right, we come to expect it, and that happens through the mass media, the massest of which, by far, is television.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2113
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
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. Doublet of masa.