mass

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A large amount or quantity of something with no clear shape.

   A huge mass of ice broke away from the glacier.

2. 2
   adj

   Involving or affecting a large number of people or things.

   The new factory created mass unemployment when it closed.

3. 3
   noun

   Ordinary people considered as a large group.

   The new law was popular with the mass of the population.

4. 4
   verb

   To gather together into a large group.

   Crowds began to mass outside the stadium before the game.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Mass has two unrelated origins. The late Middle English word for a large, shapeless body goes back to Greek maza, “barley cake,” while Old English Mass, the Christian Eucharistic service, derives ultimately from Latin mittere, “to send” or “dismiss,” perhaps through the service’s closing formula meaning “Go, it is the dismissal.”

From Middle English messe, from Old English mæsse and Old French messe, both from Late Latin missa, from Latin mittō (“to send, dismiss”), compare French messe. In the ancient churches, the public services at which the catechumens were permitted to be present were called missa catechumenorum, ending with the reading of the Gospel. Then they were dismissed with the words: "Ite, missa est", the congregation is dismissed. After that the sacrifice proper began. At its close the same words were said to those who remained. So the word gave the name of Mass to the sacrifice in the Catholic Church. Co…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary