mass

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“
Finally, the force of the word shows that the mass is a sacrifice, since "mass" is nothing but "oblation," and has received its name from the Hebrew word misbeach, altar--in Greek thysiasterion, on account of the oblation.

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Definitions (90)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (14)

  1. noun A unified body of matter with no specific shape: a mass of clay.
  2. noun A grouping of individual parts or elements that compose a unified body of unspecified size or quantity: "Take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates” (Herman Melville).
  3. noun A large but nonspecific amount or number: a mass of bruises.
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Examples (50)

  • To Knox the mass is the symbol of all that he justly detested in the degraded Church as she then was in Scotland, “that horrible harlot with her filthiness.”  To Kennedy it was what we have seen. —  John Knox and the Reformation
  • "These animalcules," says Ehrenberg, "constitute a chain, which, though in the individual it be microscopic, yet in the mass is a mighty one, connecting the organic life of distant ages of the earth In view of facts like these, we may surely say, that the existence of the infusory animalcules, and even of the entozoa, is conceivable, supposing they could only have been produced by parents of their own kind, and without having recourse to the anomalous and hypothetical doctrine of equivocal generation. —  A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'
  • Bald spots the size of villages appeared, black and smoldering; the shape of the mass was altered and altered again, but when, long after, the last spark flickered out and the last ember grew dull, the grass itself, torn and injured, but not defeated or even noticeably beaten back, remained. —  Greener Than You Think
  • With the mind thus impressed, let any one examine beds of conglomerate many thousand feet in thickness, which, though probably formed at a quicker rate than many other deposits, yet, from being formed of worn and rounded pebbles, each of which bears the stamp of time, are good to show how slowly the mass has been accumulated. —  On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (2nd edition)
  • He easily succeeded in convincing her that the mummery of popery and the mass were at variance with God's most holy word, and honestly reproved her for following too much the vanities of a wicked world. —  Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

form ·  body ·  weight ·  portion ·  structure ·  cloud ·  surface ·  force ·  line ·  wave ·  pile ·  stream

Used in the same contextWord Family

mass:   masses ·  Mass ·  massed ·  massing
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English masse, from Old French, from Latin massa, from Greek māza, maza; see mag- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English masse, messe, from Anglo-Saxon mæsse, the mass, a church festival, = Old Saxon missa = OFries. missa = Middle Dutch misse, Dutch mis = Middle Low German misse = Old High German missa, messa, Middle High German messe, misse, German messe = Icelandic messa = Swedish messa = Danish messe = French messe = Spanish misa = Portuguese missa = Italian messa, the mass, from Late Latin missa, dismissal, especially the dismissal of a congregation, the mass, from Latin mittere, past participle missus, send: see mission. The name missa is usually said to be taken from the words ite, missa est, ‘go, it is the dismissal,’ or ‘go, dismissed’ (the word concio,‘congregation,’ being unnecessarily supposed to be omitted), thought to have been used at that point of the mass when the catechumens were dismissed, and the communion service followed; but it appears to have referred orig. to the dismissal of the congregation at the end of the mass, and to have been applied, by an easy transfer, to the service itself.
  2. from mass, n.
  3. from Middle English masse, from Old French masse, French masse = Provencal massa = Spanish masa = Portuguese Italian massa = Old High German massa, Middle High German G. masse = Danish masse = Swedish massa, from Latin massa, a lump, mass (as of dough, pitch, salt, cheese, metal, stone, etc.), prob. from Greek μᾶζα, a barley cake; cf. μάγμα, a kneaded mass, from μάσσ, σ1δειν, knead: see macerate. Hence ult. maslin.
 

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