masters

Pluralmasters

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of master.

   The guild's senior masters trained apprentices for years before granting them rank.

   Two grandmasters and three lesser masters reviewed the disputed game.

   Note

   A regular plural formed with -s that carries every sense of the singular: the masters of merchant ships, of a craft, of servants or animals. The household sense, the master of the house, now sounds dated. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb form (she masters the scales), so the surrounding grammar tells them apart. The possessive master's takes an apostrophe and is a different form.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A graduate degree ranking above a bachelor's degree and below a doctorate.

   After two years of part-time study, she finally completed her masters in public health.

   A masters often opens doors to research positions that a bachelor's alone cannot.

   Note

   A clipped form of master's degree. Speakers drop the word degree, and the apostrophe often goes with it, leaving masters as a noun of its own: a masters in public health. The fuller spelling, master's, is still common. In either spelling it takes singular agreement despite the final s, so you write "a masters often opens doors," never "open."

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of master.

   Once a pianist masters the scales, the harder pieces come more readily.

   The software masters routine tasks but still struggles with ambiguous instructions.

   Note

   One spelling stands in for several quite different verbs. It can mean learning something thoroughly (she masters a language), subduing something (he masters his fear), or making the master copy of a recording. All of these take a direct object. An obsolete sense, 'to own', turns up only in older texts. The intransitive 'to earn a master's degree' links this verb to the degree noun.

4. 4
   adjectiveCanadaUS

   Relating to a sporting league or competition limited to players above a certain age or experience level.

   The club hosts a masters tournament each fall for golfers aged fifty and up.

   Veteran rowers entered the masters category rather than racing against college crews.

   Similarsenior

   Note

   A sports term used in the US and Canada for events and divisions organized by age or experience rather than open to everyone. It works as a modifier before a noun: a masters meet, a masters tournament, the masters category. It keeps its final s even though nothing plural is meant, so do not trim it to master or add an apostrophe.

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