mass
Noun pluralmasses
Pluralmasses
- 1Involving, affecting, or done by large numbers of people or things, as in mass media, mass production, or mass protest.
Television opened the door to mass communication with millions at once.
The movement depended on mass participation from ordinary citizens.
UsageGoes before a noun: mass protests, mass production, mass media.
- 2A measure of how much matter an object contains and of how strongly it resists changes in its motion, one of the fundamental properties of matter.
The scientists measured the mass of the sample in grams.
An object's mass stays the same whether it sits on Earth or the Moon.
UsageGiven in kilograms: a mass of 5 kg. In science it is kept apart from weight, which changes with gravity.
Note
Physics turns the lump into a number. Here mass measures a body's inertia, its resistance to having its motion changed. In everyday "a mass of rock" the word names the stuff; here it names a quantity the stuff has.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Mass measures inertia, or resistance to changes in motion. pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov
- 3A quantity of matter that coheres into a single body, or a collection of particles or things that together form one large body.
A dense mass of clay blocked the bottom of the drainpipe.
The volcano hurled a glowing mass of molten rock into the air.
UsageUsually a mass of something: a mass of clay.
Similarlump, chunk, clump, body, block
Note
The sense the word arrived with: late Middle English masse, around 1400, meaning "lump, quantity of matter." Newton applies it to whole planets that would freeze into "inactive masses." The church word is a separate family despite the spelling; see the Eucharist.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The matter-related word entered late Middle English as masse around 1400, meaning a lump or quantity of matter. en.wiktionary.org
- Isaac Newton describes planets freezing and becoming inactive masses. gutenberg.org
- 4
- 5A large quantity or amount of something, or a large number of people or things considered together as one body.
A mass of fans surged toward the stage as the band appeared.
By noon the square had filled with a mass of protesters.
UsageUsually a mass of people or things; in their masses stresses sheer numbers.
Similarcrowd, throng, host, multitude, sea
Note
A crowd seen as one body, and the point where the two unrelated words meet in a pun. Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (1970) rhymes generals gathered as a crowd with witches at an unholy version of the rite, setting this sense against the church rite.
- 6The common people of the lower social classes, regarded collectively as a single body.
The reformers claimed to speak for the masses long ignored by the rich.
Politicians promised cheap housing to win the support of the masses.
UsageUsed as the masses; a mass of people is just a crowd.
Similarpopulace, multitude, proletariat
Oppositeelite, aristocracy
Note
Class vocabulary, used in the plural with the article: the masses. The plural does the work. A mass of people is just a crowd, but "the masses" are the lower classes as a social body. That shift makes the old joke "The masses are revolting" possible, since it reads both as rising up and as repellent.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- “The masses are revolting” is an established joke. peterfrase.com
- The joke exploits the verbal and adjectival meanings of “revolting”: rebelling and repellent. en.wiktionary.org
- 7Added body bulk, especially the muscle gained through strength training.
The trainer designed a program to add lean mass over the winter.
Serious lifters track their mass gains week by week.
UsageUsually no article: gain mass, build mass, lean mass.
Note
The gym's word for size: muscle added through hypertrophy. Steve Holman, writing in Ironman in 1988, notes that muscle maniacs go "ga ga" over mass "no matter how it's presented." In a laboratory the same word would mean the physicist's measure.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Steve Holman wrote the cited passage in Ironman in 1988. en.wiktionary.org
- Holman said that muscle maniacs go “ga ga” over mass “no matter how it's presented.” en.wiktionary.org
- 8An abnormal lump or growth in the body that can be felt or seen, such as a tumor.
An ultrasound revealed a mass near the patient's kidney.
Surgeons removed the mass and sent it away for testing.
UsageDoctors find or remove a mass; lump is the everyday word.
Note
Clinical language that describes by shape and by what the examiner can detect. The structure is abnormal, often rounded, and it can be felt or seen. Lump is its plain equivalent, and a mass is not always a tumor.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- A mass can be detected by touch or seen. cancer.org
- 9To form or collect into a single body or large group; to assemble.
Troops began to mass along the border at dawn.
Dark clouds massed over the hills before the storm broke.
UsageWith or without an object: generals mass troops, and troops mass along a border.
Similargather, assemble, collect, congregate, accumulate
Note
Older prose favors "mass them together." H. P. Robinson's Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869) uses the phrase as an artist would, letting light and shade "mass them together" into broad shapes.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- H. P. Robinson wrote Pictorial Effect in Photography, first published in 1869. upload.wikimedia.org
- The book uses the exact phrase “mass them together” about light and shade grouping forms. upload.wikimedia.org
- 10The bulk, size, or magnitude of something considered as a whole.
The mass of the old fortress gives it an imposing presence.
Visitors are struck by the mass of the redwood trunks.
UsageOften the sheer mass of something.
Similarbulk, size, magnitude, volume
Note
Bulk felt as presence rather than counted. Shakespeare's Hamlet speaks of "this army of such mass and charge," and the noun there takes no article: of such mass. Used this way, it describes how imposing something is as a whole, not how much of it there is.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Hamlet is a play by Shakespeare. folger.edu
- Hamlet says "this army of such mass and charge" in Act 4, scene 4; "mass" has no article in that phrase. folger.edu
Less common meanings
- 11The chief part of something, making up its main body.
The mass of the manuscript concerns the author's early travels.
The mass of the estate passed to the eldest son.
UsageWith the: the mass of something means most of it.
Note
Benjamin Jowett's 1881 Thucydides has night aiding "the mass of the fugitives in their escape," meaning the bulk of them rather than all of them. In this sense the word comes with the and of, as in the great mass of the work.
- 12Physical matter or material: the substance that things are made of.
A steady wind of charged particles carries mass away from the sun into space.
When a log burns, no mass is destroyed; it simply leaves as smoke, gas, and ash.
Similarmatter, material, substance
Note
Matter has been inside the word from the start: masse entered English around 1400 meaning "lump, quantity of matter", through Anglo-Norman and Latin massa, "lump, dough", from Greek mâza, a barley-cake. Here it is uncountable stuff, used without an article, as when wind carries mass away. With an article it turns into a lump or body; given a figure in kilograms, it becomes the physicist's measure of inertia.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- English masse dates from around 1400 and originally meant a lump or quantity of matter. en.wiktionary.org
- The word came through Anglo-Norman masse and Latin massa, meaning lump or dough. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin word derives from Greek mâza, meaning barley-cake. en.wiktionary.org
- 13A musical composition setting the sung parts of the church service to music.
The orchestra accompanied a soaring mass by Beethoven.
Music students studied the structure of a Baroque mass.
- 14To celebrate or perform the Eucharistic church service.
Note
An obsolete verb, best known from its participle. Richard Hooker, in a sermon on St. Jude first printed in 1614, speaks of "massing priests," meaning priests who say Mass. Do not revive it. A modern reader would take "massing" as gathering into a body, so current English says "say Mass" or "celebrate Mass" instead.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- Richard Hooker wrote Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie. oldsite.trinity.utoronto.ca
- Books I–IV first appeared in 1593; Book V followed in 1597. The remaining books appeared posthumously. oldsite.trinity.utoronto.ca
- The passage is in the first of Two Sermons upon Part of St. Jude's Epistle, first published in 1614, later included alongside Hooker's other works. oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
- The corrected source's first-edition title page is dated 1614. oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
- Massing here means celebrating Mass. en.wiktionary.org
- 15Precious metal, especially gold or silver, considered as raw material.
Note
An obsolete sense that survives in older poetry. Edmund Spenser, in Book IV of The Faerie Queene (1596), sets a goddess on "an altar of some costly masse," meaning gold or silver as precious substance. Avoid it in current writing. A modern reader would take it as a plain lump of matter, and the note of value would be lost.
- 16A medicinal substance worked into a soft, even lump of the right consistency for forming pills.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of mass apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
Late Latin massa ("lump, dough") goes back to Ancient Greek mâza, a "barley-cake" or "lump of dough," which may be based on mássō, a verb meaning "to knead", though this is uncertain. The word reached English through Anglo-Norman and Old French and shows up in late Middle English, around 1400, as masse, meaning "lump, quantity of matter." The meaning "a large number" dates from around 1580, and the scientific meaning from 1687 as Latin massa in Isaac Newton's work, with the first English use in 1704.
The source is Latin mittere ("to send"), by way of the closing words of the Roman Rite, ite, missa est, meaning "go, the assembly is dismissed." Late Latin missa became Vulgar Latin *messa, and the word reached English both as Old English mæsse, meaning "church festival, the mass," and through Old French messe, ending up as Middle English messe. German Messe and Dutch mis are comparable words.