mastering

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of master.

   Mastering a craft requires both patience and steady repetition.

   He is mastering the art of bread-making this winter.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, not only learning. Mastering your fear means subduing it, and mastering a track means making its master copy. As a gerund it takes a direct object (mastering a craft), whereas the noun of growing skill needs of (the mastering of three languages). In the progressive it describes skill still being acquired: he is mastering bread-making.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process of becoming highly skilled in the use of something; the development of mastery.

   Like an apprentice slowly becoming a master craftsman over many years at the bench.

   The mastering of three languages took her a decade of dedicated study.

   True mastering of a discipline comes only with years of patient effort.

   Similarmastery, acquisition, learning, command

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The final stage of audio production, in which a finished recording is prepared and balanced for release.

   The album spent two weeks in mastering before its release date.

   Careful mastering made the tracks sound consistent across different speakers.

   Note

   Studio work gives this noun a countable use: a mastering can be one particular prepared version of a recording, so a performance may exist in several. Alan Blyth's Choral Music on Record (2007) praises "the dazzling clarity of the modern digital masterings" when comparing performances on record. Used uncountably, it names the stage itself, as in an album that is still in mastering.

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