mass

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A unified body of matter with no specific shape: a mass of clay.
2. n. 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. n. A large but nonspecific amount or number: a mass of bruises.
4. n. A lump or aggregate of coherent material: a cancerous mass.
5. n. The principal part; the majority: the mass of the continent.
6. n. The physical volume or bulk of a solid body.
7. n. Physics A property of matter equal to the measure of an object's resistance to changes in either the speed or direction of its motion. The mass of an object is not dependent on gravity and therefore is different from but proportional to its weight.
8. n. An area of unified light, shade, or color in a painting.
9. n. Pharmacology A thick, pasty mixture containing drugs from which pills are formed.
10. n. The body of common people or people of low socioeconomic status: "Give me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” ( Emma Lazarus).
11. v. To gather or be gathered into a mass.
12. adj. Of, relating to, characteristic of, directed at, or attended by a large number of people: mass education; mass communication.
13. adj. Done or carried out on a large scale: mass production.
14. adj. Total; complete: The mass result is impressive.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The celebration of the Lord's Supper or eucharist.
2. n. The office for the celebration of the eucharist; the liturgy. The component parts of the mass or liturgy are the ordinary of the mass (ordo missæ) and the canon of the mass (canon missæ), succeeded by the communion (sometimes counted part of the canon) and post-communion. Anciently and technically the part preceding the offertory is the mass or liturgy of the catechumens (missa catechumenorum), the remainder the mass or liturgy of the faithful (missa fidelium). In the Roman Catholic Church different classes of masses are high mass, low mass, private mass, votive mass, etc. See the phrases below.
3. n. The sacrament of the eucharist or holy communion. The word mass in this and the preceding senses is popularly used of the eucharist as celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church, or of the teachings of that church with regard to the sacrament, as involving not only the doctrines of the real presence and the eucharistic sacrifice, held in some other churches also, but the doctrine of transubstantiation as defined by the Council of Trent. The use of the word mass (missa) in the Western Church is as old as the fourth century. The Greek Church has no term precisely corresponding to mass, the sacrament being generally called the eucharist or holy communion, and the office the liturgy. At the Reformation the first Prayer-Book (1549) of the Church of England retained the name mass, which was omitted in the second book (1552) and fell into disuse, being popularly regarded as involving a Roman Catholic view of the sacrament. The use of the word has, however, been revived to some extent among Anglicans in the present century. Swedish and Danish Protestants use the corresponding word for their own communion office.
4. n. A musical setting of certain parts of the Roman Catholic liturgy, also of corresponding parts of the Anglican liturgy. It consists usually of the following sections, each of which is sometimes divided into separate movements: Kyrie, Gloria (including the Gratias agimus, Qui tollis, Quoniam, Cum Sancto Spiritu), Credo (including the Et Incarnatus, Crucifixus, Et Resurrexit), Sanctus (including the Hosanna), Benedictus (including a repetition of the Hosanna), and the Agnus Dei (including the Dona nobis). To these an Offertorium (after the Credo and before the Sanctus) is sometimes added. The Requiem Mass differs largely from the regular mass, and includes settings of several of the stanzas of the hymn “Dies Iræ.” The artistic form of musical masses varies widely, from unaccompanied plain-song to the most elaborate polyphony with orchestral accompaniments. Medieval masses were named usually from the melody which was taken as the subject for contrapuntal treatment, as Josquin's mass “L'homme armé”; modern masses are named from the key of the first movement, as Bach's “Mass in B minor.”
5. n. A church festival or feast-day: now only in composition: as, Candlemas, Childermas, Christmas, Lammas, Martinmas, Marymas, Michaelmas, Roodmas (compare kermess).
6. n. Any mass where only the priest communicates, especially such a mass celebrated in a private oratory.
7. To celebrate mass.
8. n. A body of coherent matter; a lump, particularly a large or unformed lump: as, a mass of iron or lead; a mass of flesh; a mass of rock.
9. n. An assemblage or collection of incoherent particles or things; an agglomeration; a congeries; hence, amount or number in general: as, a mass of sand; a mass of foliage, of troops, etc.
10. n. The bulk or greater part of anything; the chief portion; the main body.
11. n. Bulk in general; magnitude; massiveness.
12. n. The quantity of any portion of matter as expressed in pounds or grams, and measured on an ordinary balance with the proper reduction for the buoyancy of the atmosphere; otherwise, the relative inertia, or power in reaction, of a body. For example, if two bodies at rest, but free to move, as a gun suspended in vacuo and a bullet in it, are suddenly separated by a force acting between them, their respective velocities will be inversely as their masses, and this phenomenon best defines mass. It is usually confounded with weight, which is more properly the force with which a body is accelerated in the direction in which a plummet points, in consequence of the earth's attraction and rotation. Thus, if a piece of lead which is found to weigh a pound at the base of the Washington monument is transported to the top, it will be found to weigh a pound there, for its mass is unchanged. But if only the piece of lead and the balance are carried to the top of the monument, while the weight against which it has been weighed is left at the base, and there attached to the balance at the top by means of a long string or wire (the weight of which is to be properly allowed for), the piece of lead would be found to have lost the weight of one third of a grain, the weight thus varying though the mass does not.
13. n. In entomology, the terminal joints collectively of an antenna when they are enlarged and closely appressed to each other, forming a clava or club.
14. n. A large bunch of strung beads (12 small bunches fastened together).
15. To form into a mass; collect into masses; assemble in one body or in close conjunction: as, to mass troops at a certain place; to mass the points of an argument.
16. To strengthen, as a building for the purpose of fortification.
17. To collect in masses; assemble in groups or in force.
18. n. See mas.
19. n. In pharmacy, a preparation of thick, pasty consistency with which is incorporated some active medicinal substance: the mass is made up into pills of definite size and weight for administration.
20. n. In the fine arts, any large and simple expanse of form, light, shade, or color, in which the details of a composition arrange themselves.
21. n. In electrochemistry, the concentration of that fraction of the electrolyte which, at the given dilution, is dissociated into ions, and is therefore capable of carrying the electric current.
22. n. An abbreviation of Massachusetts.

Wiktionary

1. n. A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size; as, a mass of ore, metal, sand, or water.
2. n. A large quantity; a sum.
3. n. Bulk; magnitude; body; size.
4. n. The principal part; the main body.
5. n. physics The quantity of matter which a body contains, irrespective of its bulk or volume. It is one of four fundamental properties of matter. It is measured in kilograms in the SI system of measurement.
6. n. pharmacy A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills; as, blue mass.
7. n. medicine A palpable or visible abnormal globular structure; a tumor.
8. n. bodybuilding Excess body weight, especially in the form of muscle hypertrophy.
9. n. A large body of individuals, especially persons.
10. n. in the plural The lower classes of persons.
11. v. transitive To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to bring together into masses; to assemble.
12. v. intransitive To have a certain mass.
13. adj. Involving a mass of things; cencerning a large quantity or number.
14. adj. Involving a mass of people; of, for, or by the masses.
15. n. religion The Eucharist, now especially in Roman Catholicism.
16. n. religion Celebration of the Eucharist.
17. n. religion The sacrament of the Eucharist.
18. n. A musical setting of parts of the mass.
19. v. intransitive, obsolete To celebrate mass.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (R. C. Ch.) The sacrifice in the sacrament of the Eucharist, or the consecration and oblation of the host.
2. n. (Mus.) The portions of the Mass usually set to music, considered as a musical composition; -- namely, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, besides sometimes an Offertory and the Benedictus.
3. v. obsolete To celebrate Mass.
4. n. A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size.
5. n. (Phar.) A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills.
6. n. A large quantity; a sum.
7. n. Bulk; magnitude; body; size.
8. n. The principal part; the main body.
9. n. (Physics) The quantity of matter which a body contains, irrespective of its bulk or volume.
10. v. To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to bring together into masses; to assemble.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the property of something that is great in magnitude
2. n. a body of matter without definite shape
3. adj. formed of separate units gathered into a mass or whole
4. n. the property of a body that causes it to have weight in a gravitational field
5. n. an ill-structured collection of similar things (objects or people)
6. n. (Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches) the celebration of the Eucharist
7. n. (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
8. n. a sequence of prayers constituting the Christian Eucharistic rite
9. v. join together into a mass or collect or form a mass
10. n. the common people generally
11. n. a musical setting for a Mass