| 释义 |
▪ I. mass, n.1
(mæs; in the use of Roman Catholics freq. mɑːs)
Forms: 1–3 mæsse (Northumb. measse), 1–7 messe, 2–7 masse, 3 (in comb.), 4–6 chiefly Sc. and north. mes, 4–6 Sc. and north., 7–9 (sense 6) mess, 4– 7 mas, (4 misse, 5 mase, mese, 6 miss), 6– mass.
[OE. mæsse (Kentish and Mercian messe) wk. fem., a. vulgar L. messa (whence F. messe, Pr., It. messa; Sp. misa, Pg. missa, are from written Latin):—Eccl. L. missa. The Teut. forms, partly from vulgar Lat. and partly from written Latin, are: OFris., OS. missa (MDu. misse, messe, mod.Du. mis), MHG. misse, messe (mod.G. messe), ON. messa (Sw. messa, Da. messe).
It is now generally agreed that the L. missa is a verbal n. (formed like repulsa, collecta, offensa) from L. mittĕre (pa. pple. missus) to send, send away, dismiss. The earliest known examples of the word belong to the last quarter of the 4th century, occurring in the Epistles of St. Ambrose and the Itinerary of Silvia of Aquitania. In the early centuries it had the general sense of ‘religious service’, being applicable, e.g., to matins and vespers, though in an eminent sense it always denoted the Eucharist. In secular application it occurs, though rarely, in the 5th and 6th centuries with the sense ‘dismissal’. The origin of the liturgical application has been much disputed. Isidore (a 636) conjectured that the original reference was to the dismissal of the catechumens which was the preliminary to the eucharistic service. This explanation is not favoured by modern scholars, who consider that the wider sense ‘religious service’ is more likely than the narrower sense to have been the original. Some think that missa at first denoted the solemn dimissory formula at the conclusion of a service, Ite, missa est, and hence came to be applied to the service itself. Others (as Kattenbusch in Herzog's Encycl.) have suggested, on confessedly slender and doubtful evidence, that missa in secular use had some such sense as ‘commission’, ‘official duty’, and was therefore adopted as the rendering of Gr. λειτουργία (see liturgy), which had primarily a similar meaning, but in ecclesiastical language was used for ‘religious service’ and specifically for the Eucharist. Several other theories have been proposed, but none of them has gained wide acceptance among scholars.]
1. The Eucharistic service; in post-Reformation use, chiefly that of the Roman Catholic Church.
In the 16th c. the Protestants generally objected to the term as being unscriptural, and as associated with the ‘popish’ view of the nature of the sacrament. (In Sweden and Denmark, however, the equivalent words are applied to the Lutheran communion service.) In the first Prayer-book of Edward VI (1548–9) the heading of the service reads ‘The Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse’, but in the subsequent Prayer-books the word was not used. In recent years some of the Anglican clergy have applied the term to their own rite.
a. The celebration of the Eucharist. Freq. without article, e.g. at mass, (to go) to mass; to say, sing, hear, attend mass.
a900tr. Bæda's Hist. iv. xxii. (Schipper) 460/1 Fram underntide, þonne mon mæssan oftust singeð. c1175Lamb. Hom. 9 Ic eou segge..þet nis hit nan þerf þet me..for his saule bidde pater noster ne messe singe. a1225Ancr. R. 32, I þe messe..siggeð þeos uers stondinde. c1330R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 7620 Of prest was þer no benisoun, Ne messe songen, ne orysoun. 13..E.E. Allit. P. A. 1114 Mylde as maydenez seme at mas. 1375Barbour Bruce xi. 376 Thai herd the mess full reuerently. 1457Test. Ebor. (Surtees) II. 207 The stall quer I sit at mese. 1538Starkey England i. iv. 132 They can no thyng dow but pattur vp theyr matyns and mas. 1646J. Temple Irish Rebell. (1746) 177 Fitz-Patrick..did endeavour all he could to turn them to mass. 1686Evelyn Diary 19 Jan., Dryden..and his two sonns..were said to go to masse. 1759Robertson Hist. Scot. iii. Wks. 1813 I. 263 The earls of Lennox, Athol and Cassils openly attended mass. 1885Mabel Collins Prettiest Woman ix, She goes to early mass each morning. 1893Ch. Times 6 Oct. 997/4, I commenced having Mass on all Holy Days at 9 a.m.
b. A particular celebration of the Eucharist, esp. one having a special object or intention. Often pl.
a831Charter Oswulf in Sweet O.E. Texts 444 Ðætæᵹhwilc messepriost ᵹesinge fore Osuulfes sawle twa messan. c1200Vices & Virtues 65 Ðurh masses and bienes and ælmesses ðe me doð for ðe. 1297R. Glouc. (Rolls) 11321 Hii massen & orisons uaste uor him bede. a1300Cursor M. 21189 Þe first mess þat sent petre sang Was þar þan na canon lang. c1380Wyclif Wks. (1880) 212 To make solempnyte whanne riche men ben dede wiþ dirige & messis. 1420E.E. Wills (1882) 48, xx trentalez off messez for my soule. 1562Articles of Religion xxxi. (1571) 19 The sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said that the Priestes did offer Christe for the quicke and the dead. 1648Gage West Ind. xv. (1655) 102 They are not able to continue in the Church while a Masse is briefly hudled over. 1797Mrs. Radcliffe Italian xi, [This] announced that the first Mass was begun. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xx, Suitable masses said for the benefit of his soul. 1845Ford Handbk. Spain i. 55 The Spaniards always, whenever they can, hear a mass.
2. a. In pre-Reformation use, the sacrament of the Eucharist; subsequently, the Eucharist as administered and doctrinally viewed by Roman Catholics.
c1000ælfric's Past. Ep. xxi. in Thorpe Laws II. 376 Nu is seo mæsse..ᵹemynd his [Drihtnes] mæran þrowunge. 13..Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. xlvi. 69 Þou leuest not in þe Mes, þat euer God þer in Is. c1375Lay Folks Mass Bk. (MS. B.) 2 Þo worthyest þing..In al þis world, hit is þo messe. 1560J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 34 These men..admonishing..to put downe the Masse. 1563Winȝet Four Scoir Thre Quest. To Rdr., Wks. 1888 I. 56 The mayst blissit, feirfull, and haly sacrifice of the mes. 1635E. Pagitt Christianogr. i. iii. (1636) 96 A true, Reall, Propitiatorie and unbloudie Sacrifice, under the name of the Masse. 1853Marsden Early Purit. 28 Admitting a real presence in the mass.
b. The rite or form of liturgy used in the (pre-Reformation or Roman) celebration of the Eucharist.
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xxxix. (Cosme & Damyane) 1 Of haly messe in þe secre Syndry sanctis set we se. 1548–9(Mar.) Bk. Com. Prayer, Communion (heading), The Svpper of the Lorde, and the holy Communion, commonly called the Masse. 1628P. Smart Van. Superst. Popish Cerem. *ij b, The Author of this sermon telling him [Cosens] upon occasion the Masse is disallowed: hee replyed roundly: Will you deny that our Service is a Masse? 1634Canne Necess. Separ. (1849) 85 The papists like well of the English mass (for so King James used to call it). 1879T. F. Simmons Lay Folks Mass Bk. 352 The York use..was in the main the ancient Gregorian mass, according to the Roman rite of the eighth century. 1883J. S. Black in Encycl. Brit. XVI. 509/2 The Statio ad S. Mariam Majorem [etc.] prefixed to most of the masses in the Gregorian Sacramentary.
¶c. Shakespeare's mention of evening mass is prob. due to ignorance or forgetfulness of the fact that mass was not (normally) celebrated in the evening. In ecclesiastical antiquities, however, the expression is a literal rendering of L. missa vespertina, where the n. has the wider sense mentioned in the etymological note above.
1592Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iv. i. 38 Are you at leisure, Holy Father now, Or shall I come to you at evening Masse? 1903W. H. Hutton Eng. Saints iii. 122 It was Saturday night, and he [Columba] went to the chapel for the evening mass (as Adamnan still calls the night office).
d. Phr. † neither mass nor matins: nothing of very serious import.
1528Sir T. More Dial. conc. Heresyes i. xx. Wks. 145/2 Men say sometyme when they would saye or doo a thyng and cannot well come thereon..it maketh no matter they saye, ye maye beginne agayne and mende it, for it is nother masse nor mattyns.
3. With qualification denoting the ritual form or the intention of the service.
a. high (or solemn or † great) mass, mass celebrated with the assistance of deacon and subdeacon, with incense and music. (Also attrib. in high mass time.) low (or † little) mass, mass said without note and with the minimum of ceremony. (Also ME. swimesse = silent mass.) mass of the day, † (a) the first mass of the day (or ‘morrow-mass’); (b) the mass which has its variable parts corresponding with the choir office of the day on which it is celebrated (opposed to votive mass). private mass, (a) as rendering of missa privata, a term sometimes applied to a mass celebrated otherwise than in presence of a congregation, e.g., in a private oratory (also sometimes explained as = low mass); (b) by the Protestant controversialists of the 16th c. applied to a celebration at which the congregation, though present, were not allowed to communicate. dry mass (L. missa sicca), a celebration without either consecration or communion.
b. In the titles of occasional masses, as mass of the Trinity, mass of the Holy Ghost, mass of our Lady, Marymass, Jesus mass, † Apostle's mass (at St. Paul's Cathedral).
c. See also mass of the presanctified, of requiem, morrow-mass, hunter's, hunting mass, red mass (red a. 19), † soul-mass, votive mass.
1154O.E. Chron. an. 1125 He sang ðone heh messe on Eastren dæi. c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 97 Prest hem seið atte swimesse turneð þe bred to fleis and þe win to blod. c1386Chaucer Merch. T. 650 Whan þat the heighe masse was ydoon. 14..in Q. Eliz. Acad. (1879) 34 Masse of our Lady. Ibid., The second masse of the trynite. Ibid., The third masse must bee of Requiem. c1450Merlin 97 Thei rounge to messe of the day. 1490Aberdeen Reg. (1844) I. 46 At hie mestim. c1550Bale K. Johan (Camden) 41 Masse of the v wondes. 1556Chron. Gr. Friars in Monum. Franciscana (Rolls) II. 220 A commandement from the councelle vn-to Powlles that they shulde haue no more the Apostylle masse in the mornynge. 1560J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 15 After yt all be comen together, they shal haue a messe of the holy Ghost. 1560Becon Catech. v. Wks. 1564 I. 453 In times paste, before this deuelishe priuate masse brast in, the minister and the people together dyd receive the holy misteries of the body and bloud of Christ, and not the priest alone, as the manner is now. 1568Grafton Chron. II. 309 After the thirde Agnus was sayde in time of a low Masse. 1770Baretti Journ. London to Genoa II. 199 The Priest who celebrated the Great Mass this morning. 1898C. Wordsworth Mediæval Services 22 The Mass of the day at the high altar. Ibid. 33 When the Bishop was performing a solemn Mass.
4. Qualified by the name of a saint, etc.: A feast-day or festival. Survives as -mas in Candlemas, Childermas, Christmas, Lammas, Martinmas, Michaelmas; also Allhallowmas(s, Ladymass, Marymass.
c950Lindisf. Gosp. John vii. 2 Temples mæssa, scenopegia. c1000ælfric Gram. (Z.) 43 December: se monoð onginð anum dæᵹe æfter andreasmæssan. c1330Arth. & Merl. 3391 (Kölbing) Sone after seyn Jones misse [rime lesse]. 1452Paston Lett. I. 236 Be twixt this and Seynt Margretys messe. 1584in Littlejohn Aberd. Sheriff Court (1904) Introd. 44 To Andirsmes Evin nixtocum.
5. A musical setting of those parts of the mass which are usually sung, viz. the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Benedictus, and Agnus.
1597Morley Introd. Mus. 21 In the Tenor part of the Gloria of his Masse Aue Maris stella. 1667Simpson Compend. Pract. Mus. 137 Masses, Hymns, Psalmes, Anthems..&c. 1782Burney Hist. Mus. II. 494 In every movement of Josquin's Mass, some part or other, but generally the Tenor, is singing the tune in different notes and measures. 1846Penny Cycl. Suppl. s.v. Palestrina, His first work, consisting of four masses for four voices.
6. Used in oaths and asseverations: by the mass, mod. dial. amess, and simply mass (often mess).
c1369Chaucer Dethe Blaunche 928 By the masse I durste swere..That [etc.]. 1526Skelton Magnyf. 2201 By the messe, I shall cleue thy heed to the waste. 1592Kyd Sol. & Pers. ii. i. 220 Mas, the foole sayes true. 1599Shakes. Hen. V, iii. ii. 122 By the Mes, ere theise eyes of mine take themselues to slomber, ayle de gud seruice. 1695Congreve Love for L. iii. vi, So, so, enough Father—Mess, I'd rather kiss these Gentlewomen. 1754Richardson Grandison (1811) II. xxviii. 276 Pray, sir, do you withdraw, if you please. Mr. Gr. Not I, by the mass! 1756Foote Eng. fr. Paris i. Wks. 1799 I. 98 Oh, a British child, by the mess. 1816W. Irving in Life & Lett. (1864) I. 350 By the mass, I look back with..much longing to her bounteous establishment. 1848Kingsley Saint's Trag. i. ii, Mass! I had forgot.
7. attrib. and Comb., as mass-bread, mass church, mass-goer, mass music, mass-rite, mass-time, mass-vestment, mass-work; objective, etc., as mass-hearing, mass-hunter, mass-mumbler, mass-sayer, mass-saying, mass-seer, mass-singing; mass-borrowed, mass-like, mass-mumbling adjs. Special combs.: mass-bell, (a) a bell that calls people to mass; (b) a bell that is rung during mass, a sacring-bell; † mass-cake, an opprobrious term for a wafer used in the mass; † mass-closet, a Roman Catholic chapel; † mass clothes, mass vestments; † mass-cope, a chasuble; † mass-gear, the instruments, etc. used in celebrating mass; † mass-gospeller, a protestant who (hypocritically) attends mass; † mass-groat = mass-penny; mass-hackle (now arch.), a chasuble; † mass-kiss (ME. messecos), the kiss of peace at the mass; mass-money, (a) offerings of money made at mass; (b) money paid to a priest for saying mass; † mass-reaf, mass-vestments; mass rock Hist., a rock at which persecuted Irish Catholics would gather to celebrate the mass in secret; † mass-song, the singing or celebration of mass; † mass-while, the hour for celebrating mass. Also mass-book to mass-priest.
14..in Rel. Ant. I. 61 Quhan I rynge the *messe belle. 1863Longfellow Wayside Inn, Saga K. Olaf xi. viii, The mass⁓bells tinkled.
1642Milton Apol. Smect. Wks. 1851 III. 290 Scandalous ceremonies and *masse-borrow'd Liturgies.
1473Acc. Ld. Treas. Scotl. (1877) I. 64 Item for *mess bred for the hale ȝere.
1579Fulke Heskins's Parl. 78 Their whole *Masse cakes.
a1555Bradford Hurt of hearing Mass (Copland) C vj, As though the *masse church were y⊇ catholyke churche.
1656Heylin Surv. France 92 Little Chappels, or *Masse-closets.
c1440Alph. Tales 144 He..did on his *mes clothis & stude att þe altar befor þe bisshopp.
13..Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. xxxvii. 773 Cum whon he [þe prest] doþ of his *masse-cope.
c1300Havelok 188 The caliz, and the pateyn ok, The corporaus, the *messe⁓gere.
1843Borrow Bible in Spain xlvi, Antonio, though by no means a *mass-goer [etc.].
a1555Bradford Hurt of hearing Mass (Copland) C vij, Suche be popyshe protestauntes, *masse gospellers, or, as they woulde be called, bodelye massemongers and spirytuall gospellers.
1550Bale Eng. Votaries ii. I iij, Of them that gaue aultre clothes..*masse grotes and trentals.
c1122O.E. Chron. an. 963 (Laud MS.) Min *messe hacel, & min stol, & min ræf. c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 163 Ðe meshakele is of medeme fustane. 1842Sir H. Taylor Edwin the Fair i. viii, This shaveling's meagre face, With his mass-hackle and his reef and stole.
c1425Audelay XI Pains of Hell 86 in O.E. Misc. 213 [Þai] let oþer men of *mas hereng.
a1555Bradford Hurt of hearing Mass (Copland) C vj, They that are *masse hunters.
c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 91 Tocne of sehtnesse, þat is *messe cos. c1300Beket 1779 He nolde cusse massecos to cusse Seint Thomas.
1637–50Row Hist. Kirk (Wodrow Soc.) 394 The Communion is discharged to be before the pulpit..(for that were not so *Masse-lyke).
1664H. More Myst. Iniq. 431 *Mass-money, Oblations to Saints and their Images, and the like. 1897Daily News 18 Nov. 6/1 For the purpose of earning mass money men are ordained at the earliest possible age.
1543Bale Yet a Course, etc. 88 b, *Masse momblers, holye water swyngers [etc.].
1566Pasquine in a Traunce 106 b, So many thousand of *Masse-mombling priestes.
1835Court Mag. VI. 24/2 The accompaniments to the songs and the *mass music.
a1000Canons of Edgar c. 33 in Thorpe Laws II. 250 Ðæt ælc preost hæbbe..eal *mæssereaf wurðlice behworfen. c1200Trin. Coll. Hom. 215 Boc oðer belle, calch oðer messe-ref.
1803Scott Eve St. John 91 He who says the *mass-rite for the soul of that knight.
1914W. P. Burke Irish Priests in Penal Times p. vii, The ‘*Mass Rock’.., the ‘Priests' Hollow’,..and many a similar name..are witnesses..to a hunted priesthood. 1932H. Concannon Blessed Eucharist in Irish Hist. xix. 389 He was often placed on the summit of a high rock, to signal the approach of the ‘priest hunters’, while around a great stone, ‘a Mass rock’,..the parishioners were assembled for Mass. 1933Father Augustine Ireland's Loyalty to Mass x. 166 Carraig an Aifrinn, (the Mass Rock). 1959D. D. C. P. Mould Peter's Boat vi. 79 There are, in fact, an enormous number of known Mass rocks in this country, and that is to be expected, for they were in use whenever persecution was hot, and in fact, come almost into living memory.
1554Bradford Let. Wks. (Parker Soc.) I. 393 Then these *mass-sayers and seers shall shake.
c1440Alph. Tales 442 And so þe bisshopp was trublid herewith, & lefte his *mes-saying. 1546Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1548) 31 For the fyrst .iii [considerations] a prest ought not, he sayth, to abstayne from his masse sayenge. 1554*Mass seer [see mass-sayer].
1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 3702 Þat *mes syngyng May titest þe saul out of payn bryng. 1553Becon Reliques of Rome (1563) 198 b, In Masse singyng, in almosse geuing.
a900tr. Bæda's Hist. i. xxvi. (Schipper) 58 On þysse cyricean ærest þa halᵹan lareowas ongunnan..*mæssesong don. c1250Gen. & Ex. 2466 Elmesse-gifte, and messe-song.
1483in N. & Q. (1973) Apr. 125/1 His Highnes wyth a sword in his hand berying yt upright all the *masse tyme. 1530Palsgr. 804/2 At masse tyme. 1845‘C. Malone’ in S. J. Brown Poetry of Irish Hist. (1927) 258 At Mass-time once I went to play. 1922Joyce Ulysses 279 And once at masstime he had gone to play... A boy. A croppy boy.
1879T. F. Simmons Lay Folks Mass Bk. 335 note, The full *mass-vestment of the priest.
13..Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1097 Ȝe schal lenge in your lofte..To morn quyle þe *messe-quyle.
1840Carlyle Heroes (1858) 282 Fasts, vigils, formalities and *mass-work.
Add:[7.] mass card R.C. Church, a card informing the recipient that a mass will be offered for a specified person (esp. one recently deceased) or purpose.
1930Irish Times 1 Dec. 1/1 (Advt.), Numerous kind friends..who sent Mass cards, wreaths, letters. 1994Independent on Sunday 19 June (Sunday Review) 6 Between two bricks, I discovered a photograph of Cardinal Alojzije Viktor Stepinac printed on a mass card.
▪ II. mass, n.2|mæs|
Also 5, 7 mase, 5–8 masse.
[a. F. masse (recorded from 11th c.), ad. L. massa, prob. (as ancient grammarians believed) a. Gr. µᾶζα barley-cake, perh. cogn. w. Gr. µάσσειν to knead:—*maky-:—pre-Hellenic *mn̥qy-, f. root *mn̥q-, menq-; cf. Lith. minkyti to knead.]
1. a. A coherent body of plastic or fusible matter (as dough, clay, metal), not yet moulded or fashioned into objects of definite shape; a lump of raw material for moulding, casting, sculpture, etc. Now merged in sense 2. in (the) mass: said of metal in the form of masses or lumps.
c1400Mandeville (1839) xiv. 158 Men fynden..hard Dyamandes in a Masse, that cometh out of Gold, whan men puren it..out of the Myne. 1582N. Lichefield tr. Castanheda's Conq. E. Ind. i. xxxiii. 80 Two Masses of siluer. 1611Bible Ecclus. xxii. 15 Sand, and salt, and a masse of yron is easier to beare then a man without vnderstanding. 1630Prynne Anti-Armin. 166 Out of the same masse are made vessels of mercy. a1729Congreve tr. Ovid's Art of Love iii. Wks. 1730 III. 307 Myro's Statues, which for Art surpass All others, once were but a shapeless Mass.
†b. Metal, esp. gold or silver, in the lump.
1477Rolls of Parlt. VI. 184/2 Nor Plate, Vessell, Masse, Bullion, nor Juelx of Gold. 1555W. Watreman Fardle Facions ii. i. 115 Limall of golde in greate plentie, Whiche they..do neuer fine into masse. 1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxxix. §5 Of Gold in Masse eight thousand..Cichars. 1601Holland Pliny I. 46 Brasse and lead in the masse or lumpe, sinke downe,..but if they be driuen out into thin plates, they flote.
c. An amorphous quantity of material used in or remaining after a chemical or other operation; in Pharmacy, the compound or other substance from which pills are made.
1562Eden Let. in 1st Eng. Bks. Amer. (Arb.) Introd. 44/1, I stilled of the water from the masse or Chaos lefte of them bothe. 1643J. Steer tr. Exp. Chyrurg. xiii. 51 With Syrup. Rosar. lenit., make a Masse of Pill. 1666Boyle Orig. Formes & Qual. 329 The remaining Masse would be..of an Alkalizate nature. 1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. 122 The best method is to wash the whole mass carefully. 1809Med. Jrnl. XXI. 351 A compact mass produced in an operation, which weighs nearly 100 grains. 1880Garrod & Baxter Mat. Med. 196 One grain of opium is contained in five grains of the pill-mass.
†d. A kind of matter capable of being fashioned; a plastic substance. Obs.
1471Ripley Comp. Alch. Pref. in Ashm. (1652) 123 As of one Mase was made all thyng. 1596Spenser F.Q. iv. x. 39 The Goddesse selfe did stand Upon an altar of some costly masse. 1700Dryden Sig. & Guis. 502 When the world began, One common mass composed the mould of man.
2. a. In wider sense: A body of coherent and (really or apparently) ponderous matter of relatively large bulk; a solid physical object filling a great amount of space. In modern Physics, often contrasted with molecule or atom.
c1440Promp. Parv. 328/2 Masse, or gobet of mete, or other lyke, massa. a1547Surrey æneid ii. (1557) A iv, Wherto was wrought the masse of this huge hors? 1581Savile Tacitus' Agricola (1604) 188 A deepe masse of continuall sea is slower sturred to rage. 1692Bentley Boyle Lect. vii. 247 Those Atoms would there form one huge sphærical Mass. 1810Scott Lady of L. i. xi, Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass. 1842–3Grove Corr. Phys. Forces 73 When the magnet as a mass is in motion. 1849James Woodman i, A large gray, indistinct mass stretched all along from east to west. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. ii. 21 Adjacent to us rose the mighty mass of the Finsteraarhorn. Ibid. ii. xix. 329 What is true for masses is also true for atoms.
†b. applied to the created universe or the earth.
1587Golding De Mornay iii. (1617) 33 When hee had layd the foundations of this goodly Masse. 1602Shakes. Ham. iii. iv. 49 Yea this solidity and compound masse,..Is thought-sicke at the act. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iv. 324 God the whole created Mass inspires.
†c. Phys. The whole quantity of blood or fluid dispersed through an animal body. Obs.
1693tr. Blancard's Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Massa, all the Blood is commonly called the Mass of Blood. 1698Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 16 That the Misty Vapours might not hinder the kind operation begun on their tainted Mass of Blood. 1731Arbuthnot Nat. Aliments (1735) 175 If there is not a sufficient Quantity of Blood..to subdue it, it [acid] may infect the whole Mass of the Fluids. 1732Law Serious C. xi. 178 Poison..corrupts the whole mass of blood.
d. Mining. (See quots.)
1855J. R. Leifchild Cornwall Mines 83 Masses are sometimes termed pipe-veins by miners... The best conception that can be formed of them is, that of an irregular branching cavity, descending either vertically or obliquely into the rock, and filled up with metalliferous matter. 1883C. Le N. Foster in Encycl. Brit. XVI. 441/2 Masses. These are deposits of mineral, often of irregular shapes, which cannot be distinctly recognized as beds or veins.
3. A dense aggregation of objects apparently forming a continuous body.
1609Bible (Douay) 1 Sam. xxv. 18 Two hundred mases [Vulg. massas] of drie figges. 1660F. Brooke tr. Le Blanc's Trav. 15 The Mosca or Temple of Meka is a masse of stones built round. 1716Addison Freeholder No. 26 ⁋4 Such a beautiful mass of colours. 1776Withering Brit. Plants (1796) II. 503 The whole mass of seeds upon the fruitstalk. 1866Treas. Bot., Masses. Collections of anything in unusual quantity; as, for example, pollen-masses, which are unusual collections of pollen. 1875Buckland Log-bk. 90 One solid mass of living cod. 1880Ouida Moths II. 32 There were masses of camellias and azaleas. 1884Bower & Scott De Bary's Phaner. 361 A many-layered mass of sclerenchymatous fibres.
4. transf. and fig. (from senses 2 and 3).
a. A large quantity, amount, or number (either of material or immaterial things); often with the notion of oppressive or bewildering abundance. Freq. in pl.
1585T. Washington tr. Nicholay's Voy. ii. vi. 36 b, The whole masse..may amount too about 150. caces. 1604Shakes. Oth. ii. iii. 289, I remember a masse of things, but nothing distinctly. 1626T. H[awkins] Caussin's Holy Crt. 71 The children of rich men become drouthy amongst a masse of fountaynes. 1630R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 227 In the Silver-Mines, which were discovered in Potosie..hath beene found so huge a masse of Bullion, that [etc.]. 1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. i. §4 Like so many atoms contributing jointly to this mass of confusion now before us. 1650Fuller Pisgah 396 Of this last [viz. salt] a mass was spent in the Temple. 1772Junius Lett. lxviii. (1820) 353 Taking the whole of it together..it constitutes a mass of demonstration..complete..to the human mind. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 110 A mass of near twenty thousand pages. 1855Ibid. xi. III. 87 They removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice. 1865Tylor Early Hist. Man. i. 13 Any one who collects and groups a mass of evidence. 1879Ruskin Arrows of Chace (1880) II. 206 There is a mass of letters on my table this morning. 1958Observer 18 May 16/4 If you weren't a poor little rich girl, or very pretty or exciting socially, there were still masses of fun to be had. 1974A. Morice Killing with Kindness viii. 56 I'm sure you've got masses to do.
†b. spec. of money, treasure, etc. Also absol., a sum of money, a stock or fund. In Gaming (rare—0, after F. masse), the amount of a person's stake. Obs.
1568Grafton Chron. II. 37 By reason whereof he gathered a great masse of money. 1577Hellowes Gueuara's Chron. 89 The officers of the treasurie, that is to saye, suche as had the collection and keeping of the masse of Rome. 1592Warner Alb. Eng. vii. xxxiv. (1612) 166 And he for Masses great was brib'de Earle Henry to betray. 1593Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, i. iii. 134 Thy sumptuous Buildings,..Haue cost a masse of publique Treasurie. 1622Bacon Hen. VII 159 Hauing alreadie made ouer great Masses of the Treasure of our Crowne. 1650Fuller Pisgah iv. iv. 65 Carefully keeping their money for them, till it amounted to a mass. 1727Boyer Fr. Dict., Masse (fonds d'une Hérédité ou d'une Société), Mass, or Stock. Ibid., Masse, (en Termes de jeu de hazard) the Mass, at Play.
c. used hyperbolically, esp. in phrase to be a (or one) mass of (e.g. bruises, faults, mistakes, etc.).
1616B. Jonson Devil an Ass iv. iii, I am a woman..match'd to a mass of folly. 1623Gouge Serm. Extent God's Provid. §15 Papists..whose doctrine is a masse of ancient heresies. 1845Marryat 5 Apr. Life & Lett. (1872) II. 197 The country is really, without exaggeration, one mass of violets. 1867Smiles Huguenot's Eng. i. (1880) 2 The Church itself was seen to be a mass of abuses.
d. applied to an extensive unbroken expanse (of colour, light, shadow, etc.). Also, in Fine Art, one of the several main portions which the eye distinguishes in a composition, each characterized by a certain degree of unity in colour or lighting throughout its parts.
1662Evelyn Chalcogr. v. 120 There are some parts in them commonly to be distinguished from the Mass in gross; for example, the hairs in men, eyes, teeth, nails, &c., that as one would conceive such lines, or hatches on those masses, others may likewise be as well fanci'd upon those lesser, and more delicate members. 1695Dryden Dufresnoy's Art Paint. 141 This he did..by making the Masses of the Lights and Shadows, greater and more disentangl'd. 1710J. Harris Lex. Techn. II, Masses, in Painting, are the large parts of a Picture containing the great Lights and Shadows. 1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XIII. 609/1 Some technical knowledge of the effect producible by masses of light and shade. 1843Ruskin Mod. Paint. I. ii. ii. v. §10 The masses which result from right concords and relations of details are sublime and impressive; but the masses which result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful. 1875McLaren Serm. Ser. ii. x. 173 All striped with solid masses of blackness. 1895Zangwill Master ii. i. 121 The occasional fineness of line, the masterly distribution of masses.
e. A volume or body of sound; in Music used esp. of the effect of a large number of instruments or voices of the same character.
1873E. Atkinson tr. Helmholtz's Pop. Lect. Sci. Subjects 1st Ser. 101 Although we are not usually clearly conscious of these beating upper partials, the ear feels their effect as a want of uniformity or a roughness in the mass of tone. 1879Stainer Music of Bible 174 The grand musical results of harps..and other simple instruments, when used in large numbers simultaneously or in alternating masses.
† f. ? Something burdensome; a grief. Obs. rare.
1592W. Wyrley Armorie 144 It is a world to marke the iollitie Of seamen floting in the liquid sea... A masse it is to note his miserie When raging tempests bustle on the flood.
g. Psychol. (See apperceiving mass, apperception mass.)
1907W. James in Jrnl. Philos. 18 July 397 My statements may seem less obscure if surrounded by something more of a ‘mass’ whereby to apperceive them.
5. a. Of human beings: A large number collected in a narrow space; a compact body. Also, a multitude of persons mentally viewed as forming an aggregate in which their individuality is lost.
1713Berkeley Guardian No. 83 ⁋1 The whole mass of mankind. 1814Scott Wav. xlvii, Their extended files were pierced..in many places by the close masses of the clans. 1848W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. I. 134 The king..sent him orders..to concentrate the troops round the Tuileries, and to act with masses. 1860Emerson Cond. Life vii. (1861) 145 Away with this hurrah of masses, and let us have the considerate vote of single men. 1874Green Short Hist. iv. §1. 155 The unconquered Britons had sunk into a mass of savage herdsmen.
b. Mil. A formation of troops in which the battalions, etc. are arranged one behind another. Opposed to line.
1889Infantry Drill 165 A Mass wheeling into Line of Quarter Columns... A Line of Quarter Columns wheeling into Mass.
6. a. the (great) mass of: the greater part or majority of.
1625Bacon Ess., Vicissitude of Things (Arb.) 571 Comets..haue..Power..ouer the Gross and Masse of Things. 1711Swift Contests Athens & Rome v. Wks. 1751 IV. 61 The mass of the people have opened their Eyes. 1806Jefferson 6th Ann. Message Writ. 1854 VIII. 68 The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries. 1863H. Cox Instit. i. viii. 107 The great mass of the people had no part in the election of representatives. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 158 We cannot expect the mass of mankind to become disinterested.
b. the mass: the generality of mankind; the main body of a race or nation.
1675Baxter Cath. Theol. i. i. 65 The Corrupted Mass simply considered was the object of no one of all these graces. 1845Browning Luria v, Those who live as models for the mass. 1848Lowell Biglow Papers Ser. i. v, The mass ough' to labour an' we lay on soffies. 1875Whitney Life Lang. ix. 159 The language of the mass goes on changing unchecked.
c. the masses: the populace or ‘lower orders’.
The antithesis with ‘the classes’ seems to have been first used by Gladstone in 1886.
1837Moore Mem. (1856) VII. 174 One of the few proofs of good Taste that ‘the masses’, as they are called, have yet given. 1863W. Phillips Speeches vi. 139 The masses are governed more by impulse than conviction. 1887M. Arnold Kaiser Dead vii, Since 'gainst the classes, He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man Incite the masses.
7.
†a. in mass = en masse, bodily, all at once.
1798A. Seward Lett. (1811) V. 133 Our nation has almost risen in mass. 1807Southey Espriella's Lett. I. 179 The levy in mass, the telegraph, and the income-tax are all from France. 1869F. W. Newman Misc. 78 To adopt their superstitions in mass.
b. in the mass: without distinction of component parts or individuals; in the aggregate.
c1820S. Rogers Italy, Nat. Prej. (1834) 149 We condemn millions in the mass as vindictive. 1832H. Martineau Hill & Valley v. 75 We speak of society as one thing, and regard men in the mass.
c. in a mass: in a lump sum.
1845Marryat Let. to Forster in Life & Lett. (1872) II. 196 They have..become a little income to me; which I infinitely prefer to receiving any sum in a mass.
8. abstr.
a. Solid bulk, massiveness.
1602Shakes. Ham. iv. iv. 47 This army of such mass and charge Led by a delicate and tender prince. 1606― Tr. & Cr. i. iii. 29 But in the Winde and Tempest of her frowne, Distinction..winnowes the light away; And what hath masse, or matter by it selfe, Lies rich in Vertue, and vnmingled. 1757J. H. Grose Voy. E. Indies 245 When exasperated by wounds, to which their mass makes them [sc. elephants in war] a mark hard to miss. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. II. xxiii. 225 Gathering mass as it travelled.
b. Physics. The quantity of matter which a body contains; in strict use distinguished from weight, though the two terms are often used indiscriminately. centre of mass: see centre n. 16.
1704J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Masse, this Word is used by the Natural Philosophers to express the Quantity of Matter in any Body. 1812–16Playfair Nat. Phil. (1819) II. 283 The mass of the Comet..cannot have been 1/500th of the mass of the Earth. 1868Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 25 The mass of the Sun alone however is equal to 750 times the united masses of all the bodies which it maintains in its sphere of attraction. 1876Tait Rec. Adv. Phys. Sci. (1885) 357 When you buy a pound of tea you buy a quantity of the matter called tea equal in mass to the standard pound of platinum. 1893Sir R. Ball Story of Sun 97 What the periodic time of the Moon would have been if our satellite had been devoid of mass.
¶9. Used for med.L. massa, a holding of land.
1854Milman Lat. Chr. I. 443 note, One mass or farm had been compelled..to pay double rent.
10. attrib. and Comb., passing into adj. Examples, of which a selection is listed below, are very numerous in the 20th century. Used to mean: of, involving, composed of masses of people (or things) or the majority of people (or a society, group, etc.); done, made, etc., on a large scale. mass-appeal, mass art, mass audience, mass behaviour, mass circulation, mass communication (hence mass communicator), mass consciousness, mass consumer (hence mass-consuming, mass consumption), mass cult, mass culture, mass deportation, mass education, mass emotion (hence mass emotional adj.), mass entertainment, mass fear, mass grave, mass hypnosis (hence mass-hypnotized adj.), mass hysteria, mass immigration, mass literacy, mass migration, mass mind (hence mass-minded adj., mass-mindedness), mass movement, mass murder (hence mass murderer), mass party, mass persuasion, mass propaganda, mass psychology, mass public, mass society, mass suggestion, mass suicide, mass unemployment; mass-made ppl. a.; mass-advertising, mass-buying, mass-merchandising (also mass-merchandised ppl. a., mass-merchandiser), mass-selling, mass-thinking vbl. ns.a. Also Arch. ‘Arranged in large masses’, as mass-pier.
b. Mil., etc. ‘Involving masses of people’, as mass attack (also as vb.), mass-bombing vbl. n., mass drill, mass formation, mass raid, mass vote.
c. Physics, as mass-attraction, mass-brightness, mass-flow, mass-moment, mass transport.
1958New Statesman 20 Dec. 881/2 Not all the spice goes into the thick wedges of Christmas pudding; and surely, as we sink deeper and deeper in the treacle of *mass-advertising, we deserve this one tiny life-saver?
1944L. MacNeice Christopher Columbus 14 To assert..that all art should have *mass-appeal is like asserting that all mathematics should be ‘for the million’. 1962Rep. Comm. Broadcasting 1960 16 in Parl. Papers 1961–2 (Cmnd. 1753) IX. 259 It has been said that in fact people watch these items; that the justification lies precisely in the fact that they are mass-appeal items. 1962S. Strand Marketing Dict. 441 In marketing, a product is said to have mass appeal when it is desired by the multitudes in all income levels.
1938Current Hist. Feb. 54 (caption) A *Mass Art. 1959M. McCarthy Sights & Spectacles p. xiv, Some of the editors felt that the theatre was not worth bothering with, because it was neither a high art, like Art, nor a mass art, like the movies! 1964Hall & Whannel Pop. Arts iii. 68 Mass art often destroys all trace of individuality and idiosyncrasy which makes a work compelling and living. 1970I. C. Jarvie Towards Sociol. of Cinema vii. 99 Cinema is in a real sense a mass art, not only in that it appeals to the mass audience, but also in that the individual is lost in the darkness of the continuous performance.
1947Crowther & Whiddington Science at War 101 When convoys of merchant ships were *mass-attacked by U-boats in 1942, they were liable to suffer heavy losses. 1959Chambers's Encycl. XIV. 733/1 On 8 August a mass attack was launched on a convoy near the Isle of Wight. 1960L. L. Snyder The War 1939–45 vi. 117 August 6, 1940. From his country home..Goering issued orders for the first great mass attack on England.
1903A. M. Clerke Problems in Astrophysics 3 The universality of an apparent *mass-attraction was a great fact.
1938Time 21 Nov. 53/1 Hitchcock pictures..are often too intricately built and written to appeal to *mass audiences. 1957R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy vi. 147 Genuine controversy..alienates, divides and separates, the mass-audience. 1957P. Martineau Motivation in Advertising xiv. 169 The ‘mass-audience’ housewife. 1967M. McLuhan Medium is Massage 22 The mass audience..successor to the ‘public’. 1974B.B.C. Handbk. 261/2 Opera, so obviously appropriate to television but with a limited appeal to the mass audience.
1940Harrisson & Madge War begins at Home i. 21 When hundreds of those replies show similar attitudes, we know we are on to something really important in terms of *mass behaviour.
1941E. C. Shepherd Mil. Aeroplane 4 Anti-aircraft fire can..break up the formations so that *mass bombing or pattern bombing becomes impossible.
1890A. M. Clerke Syst. Stars 209 The ‘*mass-brightness’ of these objects is twelve times that of the sun.
1929*Mass buying [see mass selling below].
1950B. Schulberg Disenchanted (1951) v. 61 Occasionally appearing in *mass circulation magazines with stories increasingly ordinary. 1957F. Williams Dangerous Estate: Anat. Newspapers xviii. 284 The tabloids and mass-circulation Sunday newspapers. Ibid. 291 The great mass-circulation newspapers..command their millions. 1963Times Lit. Suppl. 26 Apr. 298/4 The mass-circulation magazines.
1941Beals & Brody Lit. Adult Educ. v. 139 Concentration of power in the agencies of *mass communication is vicious. 1946J. S. Huxley Unesco ii. 25 The spread of information through all media of Mass Communication—in other words, the press, the cinema, the radio and television. 1954J. B. Priestley Magicians ii. 47 Mass communications become stronger in their effects every year. 1968P. Oliver Screening Blues 9 Mass communication through recording, and later through radio, spread the culture of the blues beyond the local definition until the whole Negro world was its habitat. 1971B. Mafeni in J. Spencer Eng. Lang. W. Afr. 100 The great potentialities of the language [sc. Nigerian Pidgin] as a medium of mass communication.
1965Punch 9 June 858/1 One way and another Lord Thomson is quite a *mass communicator. 1967Ibid. 4 Jan. 23/2 The delusion you are suffering from usually attacks columnists, commentators and other mass communicators.
1922D. H. Lawrence Aaron's Rod x. 139, I want to get myself awake, out of it all—all that *mass-consciousness. 1947Koestler in Partisan Rev. XIV. 141 Structural changes in economy without functional changes in mass-consciousness, must always lead to a dead end.
1931A. Huxley Music at Night iv. 208 A man who has no interest in the things of the mind..is the ideal consumer, the *mass consumer. 1971G. Steiner In Bluebeard's Castle iv. 87 The informational energy required by a mass-consumer society is being transmitted pictorially.
1954Encounter Mar. 5/2 Those who accept conformity do not challenge the existence of a mass-producing, *mass-consuming society, even though they refuse its values. 1969R. B. Fuller Operating Man. Spaceship Earth viii. 117 As we study industrialization, we see that we cannot have mass production unless we have mass consumption.
1963Spectator 14 June 783 Mr. Macdonald's target is ‘mass culture’ and its nauseating child ‘Midcult’, which, if anything, is worse than ‘*Masscult’. 1971M. W. Young Fighting with Food in Massim Society i. 11 Cargo beliefs are still held by many individuals, however, and a fresh catalyst could well provoke another mass cult.
1939Life 24 July 65/2 The State of Texas..has never been properly recognized for its contributions to U.S. *mass culture. 1957R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy i. 23 We are moving towards the creation of a mass culture. 1957Economist 5 Oct. 45/1 Whether the reader turns to Shakespeare or to Mr Erle Stanley Gardner for solace may depend less on his psyche and the state of ‘mass culture’ than on the thorny economics of the book business. 1975Listener 9 Jan. 40/2 The mass culture which is everyone's hope..depends upon everyone sharing what has previously been the preserve of a privileged few.
1952C. P. Blacker Eugenics 146 Since these words were written, we have witnessed the inhumanities of concentration and extermination camps, of labour camps and *mass deportations, which have scarcely been surpassed by previous tyrannies. 1955Koestler Trail of Dinosaur 160 The mass-deportations in the 'thirties produced new waves of the plague.
1896Daily News 25 Nov. 3/7 All these smart little children were doing a *mass drill.
1927A. Huxley Proper Stud. 113 The ordinary system of *mass education. 1940Graves & Hodge Long Week-End iv. 50 The terms ‘thriller’ and ‘shocker’..had been in use since the Eighties—an early by-product of mass-education. 1964C. Barber Ling. Change Present-Day Eng. ii. 20 The influence of mass-media and of mass-education.
1927A. Huxley Proper Stud. 183 Periodic revivalism and the evoking of great *mass-emotions on such occasions as pilgrimages provide the necessary emotional excitement. 1961A. O. J. Cockshut Imagination of Charles Dickens v. 78 Mingling with the crowd he is untouched by mass emotions.
1963Economist 3 Aug. 445/2 Everyone interested in political, *mass emotional, historical causes should read it.
1933Radio Times 14 Apr. 71/1 A music-hall or other large centre of *mass-entertainment. 196020th Cent. Dec. 557 The hugh metropolitan machines of mass entertainment.
1932H. Nicolson Public Faces xii. 324 There is only one human emotion stronger than mass-hatred, and that is *mass-fear.
1952Pankhurst & Holder Wind-Tunnel Technique i. 31 The rate of *mass flow per unit cross-sectional area (the mass velocity) is given by [etc.]. 1957Times 4 Oct. 11/7 In the by-pass engine a given thrust is obtained by a greater mass-flow of air at reduced velocity, the engine being both bigger and heavier than the ‘straight jet’.
1917A. G. Empey Over Top 299 *Mass formation, a close order formation in which the Germans attack.
1948E. Pound Pisan Cantos (1949) lxxvii. 49 By getting me onto the commission To inspect the *mass graves at Katin. 1972New Statesman 28 Jan. 109/3 The communists..murdered several thousand political prisoners, whose bodies were later discovered..in three separate mass graves. 1974Times 4 Sept. 8/1 Turkish troops today uncovered more bodies from the mass grave at the Turkish Cypriot village of Maratha.
1951M. McLuhan Mech. Bride (1967) 10/2 Power, glitter and *mass hypnosis engendered by regular ranks. 1967G. Playfair Prodigy iii. 82 There was..an element of mass-hypnosis in Bettymania, as there is in all such manifestations of idolatry.
1946R. Campbell Talking Bronco 61 *Mass-hypnotized, dinned drunken by the tireless Mechanic repetition of the wireless.
1934A. Huxley Beyond Mexique Bay 276 The mindless *mass hysteria of howling mobs. 1954Economist 22 May 611/1 Yet Mr Graham does not produce mass hysteria, although he is certainly dramatic. 1969Milgram & Toch in Lindzey & Aronson Handbk. Social Psychol. (ed. 2) IV. xxxv. 507 Such diverse phenomena as ‘collective excitement, social unrest.., riots.., mass hysteria, [etc.]’. 1973Times 7 Dec. 19/4 There is an argument for introducing rationing in London where some form of mass hysteria seems to have occurred.
1949Koestler Promise & Fulfilment vii. 69 The next transformation came after the First World War when *mass immigration started in earnest. 1973Times 5 Dec. 18/2 Israel was founded on..mass immigration as the dynamic of growth.
1937C. Madge in C. Day Lewis Mind in Chains 147 A fact of to-day which is so near to us that it is hard for us to see it is *mass-literacy. 1967Economist 15 Apr. p. i/3 The Franklin Book Programs Inc..uses all kinds of techniques from mass-literacy and mass-distribution schemes to training programmes.
1934T. S. Eliot Rock i. 46 Those whose souls are choked and swaddled In the..new winding sheets of *mass-made thought.
1959V. Packard Status Seekers (1960) i. 3 They can dine on *mass-merchandised vichyssoise. Ibid. 4 Everybody could enjoy the good things of life—as defined by mass merchandisers. 1962S. Strand Marketing Dict. 442 Mass merchandising, a large-scale selling method, appealing to the population as a whole with convincing advertising. 1972R. H. Buskirk et al. Concepts of Business xii. 169 The mass-merchandising specialty store..frequently calls itself a discount house.
1901E. A. Ross Social Control xxix. 396 The common perils of war or *mass migration may call for stricter corporate discipline. 1935Huxley & Haddon We Europeans ix. 273 Mass-migration and military conquest.
1932H. J. Massingham World without End x. 264 A man or woman who deserts his or her distinctive colour of being and joins the *mass-mind. 1936G. M. Young Victorian Eng. xxviii. 158 The propagandist, the advertiser and all other agents of the mass-mind. 1955Koestler Trail of Dinosaur iii. 242 An unexpected mutation of the mass-mind may occur. 1964M. McLuhan Understanding Media xi. 107 Creating the paradox of the ‘mass mind’ and the mass militarism of citizen armies.
1934Webster, *Mass-minded. 1942D. Powell Time to be Born (1943) xii. 280 The masses of women..too mass-minded in their ambitions to be even faintly understood by her.
1939H. J. Massingham Countryman's Jrnl. xxxiii. 143 It is good for a man..to converse with his own spirit or what *mass-mindedness has left of it. 1961Ann. Reg. 1960 430 The first of these was Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros, a savage satire on mass-mindedness.
1882Minchin Unipl. Kinemat. 108 The theorem of *mass-moments, which expresses the distance of the centre of mass of any body..from a plane, in terms of the masses of the constituent particles and their several distances from the plane.
1897Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. Nov. 344 They are cultivating mass sympathies and drilling themselves in *mass movements. 1927D. H. Lawrence Let. 11 July (1932) 684 They [sc. the Germans] are capable of mass-movement. 1935Discovery Oct. 292/1 Occasional mass-movements, like those of the lemmings of Scandinavia, were not to be confused with true migration. 1939Encycl. Brit. Bk. of Year 19/2 In the United States there is taking place what may roughly be termed a mass movement towards Adult Education. 1967H. Arendt Orig. Totalitarianism (new ed.) x. 313 The decisive differences between nineteenth-century mob organizations and twentieth-century mass movements are difficult to perceive.
1931S. Nearing (title) War: organized destruction and *mass murder by civilized nations. 1945R. A. Knox God & Atom vi. 79 Democracy labours for breath, when the power of mass-murder is concentrated..in the hands of a few. 1958Times Lit. Suppl. 13 June 334/3 His solution for the whole problem of mass-murders is ‘family-love’. 1967H. Arendt Orig. Totalitarianism (new ed.) xii. 421 The bulk of the armed SS served at the Eastern front where they were used for ‘special assignments’—usually mass murder.
1952B. Wolfe Limbo (1953) vii. 80 Look at this baby-faced *mass murderer. 1960Sunday Express 25 Dec. 10/2 A reprieved mass-murderer in Dartmoor.
1947‘G. Orwell’ Eng. People 22 The Communist Party [in Britain]..has never shown signs of growing into a *mass party of the kind that exists in France. 1954B. & R. North tr. Duverger's Pol. Parties i. ii. 63 The mass-party technique in effect replaces the capitalist financing of electioneering by democratic financing.
1848B. Webb Continent. Ecclesiol. 253 There are *mass-piers below those of the upper church. 1956C. W. Mills Power Elite xiii. 310 The increased means of *mass persuasion that are available. 1960J. B. Priestley Lit. & Western Man ii. 16 The time of vast urban masses and all our techniques of mass persuasion.
1950Koestler et al. God that Failed 65 Independent of the *mass-propaganda methods of the Münzenberg enterprises. 1967H. Arendt Orig. Totalitarianism (new ed.) viii. 264 Entirely new and complicated forms of mass propaganda were adopted by all parties.
1900Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. Jan. 521 This is the reason why ethnology is finding its most promising developments today in the line of ethnic or folk-psychology, which is only a cross-section of *mass-psychology. 1916B. Russell Princ. Social Reconstruction ii. 60 Even the few questions which are left to the popular vote are decided by a diffused mass-psychology. 1929Chesterton Thing xxii. 166 The abandonment of individual reason, in favour of press stunts and suggestion and mass psychology. 1937Koestler Spanish Testament ii. 308, I could wish that everyone who talks of mass psychology should experience a year of prison. 1960H. Read Forms of Things Unknown iv. xi. 179 A resort to mass psychology is evasive.
1938Times Lit. Suppl. 17 Sept. 598/1 The *mass-public does not want opinion, it wants news. 1960New Left Rev. May–June 65/2 Personalities..with an existence quite different in tone from the mass public.
1939War Weekly 25 Oct. 1313/1 First night *mass raid on London... On the Tuesday night, a night mass air attack was tried for the first time.
1929Publishers' Weekly 19 Oct. 1928/1 Our shop, like other small shops, is not geared for *mass selling or mass buying. 1968Listener 29 Aug. 285/3 There is now hardly a significant publication, from the weekly reviews to the mass-selling dailies, which does not have equity in one or other of the programme-contracting companies.
1948T. S. Eliot Notes Def. Culture ii. 40 This gives it [sc. ‘bourgeois’ society] a difference in kind from the aristocratic society which preceded it, and from the *mass-society which is expected to follow it. 1950Antioch Rev. X. 382 Mass society is no more stable under dictatorship than it is under democracy. 1957F. Williams Dangerous Estate: Anat. Newspapers xviii. 285 The straits to which an industrial mass-society has brought millions of its members. 1967G. Steiner Lang. & Silence 69 The possibility that..certain elements in the technological mass-society..have done injury to language is the underlying theme of this book.
1901E. Ross Social Control 148 In public opinion there is something which is not praise or blame, and this residuum is *mass suggestion. 1920W. McDougall Group Mind ii. 42 A proposition which voices the mind of the crowd..and so comes with the power of a mass-suggestion. 1924W. B. Selbie Psychol. Relig. 116 We have here to reckon with the influence of mass suggestion. 1947Mind LVI. 60 There can be mass suggestion, there are methods of group persuasion, but reasoning is carried on by each of us not only for himself but by himself.
1937M. Covarrubias Island of Bali (1972) vii. 199 The famous krisses of the kings of South Bali taken by the Dutch as war booty at the time of the great *mass-suicide of Den Pasar in 1906. 1959Manch. Guardian 9 July 6/6 A..policy of mass suicide masquerading as a policy of defence.
1924Public Opinion 30 May 528/3 Our modern saints of co-operative *mass-thinking. 1958R. Williams Culture & Society iii. 298 Mass-thinking, mass-suggestion, mass-prejudice would threaten to swamp considered individual thinking and feeling.
1953Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. CCXLV. 535 The *mass-transport velocity can be very different from that predicted by Stokes on the assumption of a perfect, non-viscous fluid. 1957G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. v. 347 The small deepwater waves of negligible amplitude..produce virtually no mass transport of water. 1974A.I.Ch.E. Jrnl. XX. 88/1 One of the potential advantages of slurry reactors is reduction of intraparticle mass transport resistances.
1937‘G. Orwell’ Road to Wigan Pier viii. 153, I wanted to see what *mass-unemployment is like at its worst. 1965J. L. Hanson Dict. Econ. 387 Mass unemployment is the most serious type since it is due to a general deficiency of demand. 1974Times 5 Nov. 15/3 The monetarists fear that some unemployment may be the necessary price of avoiding mass unemployment.
1887Spectator 24 Sept. 1265 A *mass vote of the people.
d. Special comb.: mass action, (a) Chem., the effect which the concentration of a reactant has on the rate of a chemical reaction; (b) the action of a mass of people; mass-area Physics (see quot.); mass balance Aeronaut., a state in which inertial coupling between the angular movement of a control surface and other degrees of freedom of the aircraft is eliminated, so avoiding flutter of the surface; also, a mass attached to a control surface to bring about such a state; also as v. trans.; so mass-balanced ppl. a., mass-balancing vbl. n.; mass concrete, concrete which is not reinforced; mass-copper, ‘native copper, occurring in large masses’ (Raymond Mining Gloss. 1881); mass defect, a deficiency of mass; spec. in Nuclear Physics, the sum of the masses of the constituent particles of a nucleus, as free individuals, less the mass of the nucleus (a quantity which effectively represents the binding energy needed to disperse the particles of the nucleus); mass distribution, the distribution of goods in bulk; mass-effect, (a) (see quot. 1902); (b) Metallurgy, the effect of size and shape in causing different rates of cooling, and so different hardnesses, in different parts of an object following heat treatment; (c) (usu. in pl.) a total or ‘grand’ effect; (d) an effect due to or dependent on mass; mass-energy, (a) the property of which mass and energy are regarded as different but interconvertible manifestations, being related by the equation E= mc2 (propounded by Einstein in Ann. d. Physik (1905) XVIII. 641), where E is the energy equivalent of a mass m and c is the speed of light; (b) attrib., relating to (the equivalence of) mass and energy; mass man, a hypothetical average man; one typical of mass society, characterized by a lack of individuality and a tendency to be manipulated by stereotyped ideas from the mass media; mass market, the market for mass-produced goods; also (with hyphen) as v.; hence mass-marketed ppl. a., mass-marketing vbl. n.; mass meeting (see quot. 1847–54; orig. U.S.); also transf. and fig.; mass noun, a noun which in common usage lacks a plural form (opp. count-noun); mass number Nuclear Physics, the total number of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus; mass phenomenon (see quot. 1968); mass-point Physics, an entity conceived as having mass and (like a geometrical point) occupying a position but lacking spatial extension; mass radiography, radiography of the chests of large numbers of people by a quick routine method; mass-ratio, the ratio of the masses of two things; spec. in Aeronaut., the ratio of the mass of a rocket with full fuel tanks to that of the same rocket with empty fuel tanks; mass-reflex Physiol., (in patients who have suffered gross injury to the spinal cord) a reflex which may involve all parts of the body innervated from the part of the spinal cord below the lesion; mass-resistivity, Physics (see quot.); mass spectrograph, a type of mass spectrometer (in the broader sense) in which deflected ions are made to strike a photographic plate so as to produce a photographic mass spectrum; hence mass-spectrographic adj.; mass spectrometer, any instrument in which material in a vacuum is ionized and the resulting ions are formed into a beam, separated according to the ratios of their mass to their net electric charge (e.g. by deflecting them in a magnetic field or accelerating them in an electric field), and then detected; esp. one in which the detection is done electrically rather than photographically; so mass spectrometry; also mass-spectrometric adj., mass-spectrometrically adv.; mass spectroscope (rare), an instrument for producing a mass spectrum; a mass spectrometer (in the broader sense); mass spectroscopy, the art of using the mass spectrometer or mass spectrograph; that branch of science which involves the use of these instruments; so mass-spectroscopic adj.; mass spectrum, a record obtained with a mass spectrometer or mass spectrograph, in which ions from a sample material are represented as dispersed according to their mass-to-charge ratio; mass transfer Chem. Engin., movement of one substance through or into another on a molecular scale; mass unit = atomic mass unit (s.v. atomic a. and n. A. 1); mass-vector Physics (see quot.); mass wasting Geomorphol., movement of rock, soil, fallen snow, or the like under the influence of gravity; mass-word = mass noun. See also mass medium, mass observation, mass production.
1891G. M'Gowan tr. E. von Meyer's Hist. Chem. 461 Berthollet..deduced precisely the opposite from his own assumption—that mass-action comes into play in chemical processes. 1903H. C. Jones Princ. Inorg. Chem. xxviii. 346 If these crystals are redissolved in more water, and the solution evaporated to crystallization, the neutral salt will separate, showing a further splitting off of sulphuric acid due to the mass action of the water. 1924W. B. Selbie Psychol. Relig. 73 It is not only that mass action has a marked effect upon the will, but that [etc.]. 1958R. Williams Culture & Society iii. 298 The derived ideas have arisen from urbanization..from the working class, mass-action. 1970Passmore & Robson Compan. Med. Stud. II. iii. 1/2 Whatever the nature of a receptor, its reaction with a drug is presumably chemical and can be described by the Law of Mass Action. 1974Daily Tel. 17 Sept. 6/3 He went on to justify the disruption of academic life during student campaigns, and said that mass action in support of student policies would go ahead.
1876Maxwell Matter & Motion lxviii. 56 When a material particle moves from one point to another, twice the area swept out by the vector of the particle multiplied by the mass of the particle is called the mass-area of the displacement of the particle with respect to the origin from which the vector is drawn.
1931Flight 11 Sept. 906/1 The control surfaces have been mass-balanced in order to reduce the risk of flutter. 1935Pippard & Pritchard Aeroplane Struct. (ed. 2) xii. 238 A bob weight used to give mass balance to an aileron should be placed as far outboard of any point of wing support as possible. 1959J. L. Nayler Dict. Aeronaut. Engin. 168 The mass balance may be a single lump of metal or be distributed along the span of the control surface and connected to it by a series of links. 1966F. G. Irving Introd. Longitudinal Static Stability Low-Speed Aircraft viii. 82 Full mass-balance..may not be required as an anti-flutter measure on slow-speed aircraft.
1934Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXVIII. 76 Aeroplanes employing mass-balanced ailerons. Ibid., Those [aeroplanes] in which the anti-flutter device of mass-balancing is incorporated. 1947C. F. Toms Introd. Aeronaut. v. 195 There can arise cases in which dynamic mass-balancing with a single mass is not possible and two masses are required. 1972T. H. G. Megson Aircraft Struct. xiii. 468 The position of the inertia axis may be adjusted by a redistribution of wing weight, a process known as mass-balancing.
1930Engineering 25 July 101/2 After the completion of the mass concrete foundation, the reinforcement was erected for the columns.
1924J. G. A. Skerl tr. Wegener's Orig. Continents & Oceans xi. 160 Subterranean mass-defect and mass-excess above the sea-level..mutually counterbalance, isostasy thus prevailing in mountain masses. 1927F. W. Aston in Proc. R. Soc. A. CXV. 510 There would have been no loss of energy, that is mass defect, in the latter [sc. alpha particles] to represent the binding forces holding the four particles together. 1962H. D. Bush Atomic & Nucl. Physics iii. 69 According to the principle of the equivalence of mass and energy, the mass defect is equivalent to the energy necessary to separate the constituent particles: ΔE = c2.ΔM. This relation shows that a mass defect of one a.m.u. is equivalent to a binding energy of 931 × 106 eV (931 MeV).
1936J. F. Pyle Marketing Princ. (ed. 2) xviii. 575 Mass distribution, the corollary of mass production, is made possible through the effective use of sales-promotional methods and devices. 1951C. W. Mills White Collar i. ii. 26 What good would your mass production be without our mass distribution? 1967Economist 15 Apr. p. i/3 One of the most effective spearheads of American book publishing..uses all kinds of techniques from mass-literacy and mass-distribution schemes to training programmes.
1902Hillebrand & Penfield in Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CLXIV. 217 The alkalies and lead play so small a rôle, and the remaining constituents so prominent a part in the complex chemical molecules, that the latter control or dominate the crystallization by virtue of what may be called their mass-effect. 1925Jrnl. Iron & Steel Inst. CXII. 473 (heading) Initial temperature and mass effects in quenching. 1934Webster II. 1510/2 Arranged in or involving masses, as a mass effect. 1936Mind XLV. 226 It may be true that macroscopic phenomena involve—or, if we like to say so, are mass-effects of—large quantum numbers. 1939Carpenter & Robertson Metals II. xvi. 1362 To discover whether duralinium was subject to mass-effect in the same way as steel, Teed quenched 5 in. diam. and 0·564 in. diam. bars of the same material from 490°C. into water. 1945H. D. Smyth Gen. Acct. Devel. Atomic Energy Mil. Purposes iv. 35 It was found that the total absorption of neutrons by such spheres could be expressed in terms of a ‘surface’ effect and a ‘mass’ effect. 1947A. Einstein Mus. Romantic Era xvi. 248 The rhythmic piquancy and the mass-effects of Auber. 1968D. R. Cliffe Technical Metall. v. 112 The actual cooling rate depends upon several factors, including the diameter of the bar or thickness of section (i.e. mass effect). 1970G. K. Woodgate Elem. Atomic Struct. ii. 28 This is an example of isotope shift arising from the normal mass effect.
1935Proc. R. Soc. A. CXLIX. 415 The data..afford strong evidence of the validity of the laws of conservation of mass-energy, and of momentum, in some atomic transmutations. 1938Einstein & Infeld Evolution of Physics 208 According to the theory of relativity, there is no distinction between mass and energy... Instead of two conservation laws we have only one, that of mass-energy. 1942J. D. Stranathan ‘Particles’ of Mod. Physics ix. 374 According to the mass-energy equivalence concept, the rest mass of an electron represents an energy V = ..0·511 × 106 EV. 1968M. S. Livingston Particle Physics i. 6 The released energy [in fission and fusion] comes from the excess mass which is transformed into energy... We can compute the energy release through the Einstein equivalence relation E = mc2. This mass energy was stored in the heavy nuclei and in the very light nuclei in the form of excess mass at the time our galaxy was formed.
1928A. Huxley Point Counter Point v. 76 They were armed to protect individuality from the mass man, the mob. 1945H. Read Coat Many Colours lxxi. 348 Screwed-up tissue papers, cigar butts, all the characteristic droppings of Mass-man. 1966D. Jenkins Educated Society ii. 70 They will become increasingly dependent on the public media..on the way to becoming mass-men. 1973Black World May 8/1 Black community newspapers and talk shows on Black radio stations are other avenues for reaching our mass man.
1959Times 9 Mar. (Britain's Food Suppl.) p. vii/7 The housewife who has an outside job now forms an important factor in the mass-market. 1959Time 16 Mar. 61/1 An ultrasonic dishwasher for the home is already technically feasible but too expensive to mass-market. 1962Guardian 7 Feb. 8/1 The mass-market furniture designers. 1971Engineering Apr. 41/3 For which their whole mass-market philosophy had prepared them.
1960New Left Rev. Sept.–Oct. 3/2 Mass-marketed commodities.
1945B. Nash Developing Marketable Products ii. 23 This relationship between the large-volume manufacturer, the many different users, and the mechanisms of mass marketing is typified by the activities of every manufacturer using mass-marketing methods.
1733B. Lynde Diary (1880) 39 Our mass meeting at which the village intend to urge their being a township. 1847–54Webster, Mass-meeting, a large assembly of the people to be addressed on some public occasion, usually political. U. States. 1851A. O. Hall Manhattaner 4 We steamed..by mass meetings of democratic looking logs and snags. 1855Motley Dutch Rep. (1861) I. 23 Those tumultuous mass-meetings. 1880A. E. Housman Let. 10 May (1971) 20 They were chairing Harcourt from the station to a mass-meeting at the Martyrs' Memorial. 1904Wodehouse Gold Bat viii. 90 They would never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in one another's studies. 1960R. Campbell Coll. Poems III. 73 In the mass-meeting of the waves. 1970Daily Tel. 17 Apr. 2 Their 10-man executive committee would be calling a mass meeting of the 2,000-strong student body.
1933L. Bloomfield Lang. xii. 205 Mass nouns never take a and have no plural. 1963Language XXXIX. 209 The mass noun blood in the singular takes the and some but not numerical quantifiers. 1965[see count n.1 9]. 1970Archivum Linguisticum I. 24 There is no special class of mass-nouns in Portuguese marked by the absence of metaphony.
1923F. W. Aston in Phil. Mag. XLV. 945 These integers are provisionally called ‘mass-numbers’. The mass-number may be taken to represent the number of protons in the atom. 1946Electronic Engin. XVIII. 153/2 The separation of the uranium isotope of mass number 235..from that of mass number 238..constituted one of the major investigations in the development of the atomic bomb. 1962H. D. Bush Atomic & Nucl. Physics iii. 63 A nuclide is indicated by the chemical symbol with the mass number as a superscript and atomic number as a subscript, the latter often being omitted. For example, 7N14 or N14 refers to one of the isotopes of nitrogen (Z = 7), namely the one which has mass number 14.
1936J. R. Kantor Objective Psychol. Gram. iii. 32 Comparative grammar deals with auditory–vocal mass phenomena. 1954R. W. Brown in G. Lindzey Handbk. Social Psychol. II. xxiii. 833/2 Social scientists have not been content to define mass phenomena as collective misbehavior. 1967H. Arendt Orig. Totalitarianism (new ed.) ix. 277 Statelessness, the newest mass phenomenon in contemporary history. 1968A. F. C. Wallace in Internat. Encycl. Social Sci. X. 55/2 ‘Mass phenomenon’ signifies that class of social event in which a large number of people at the same time behave in a way which constitutes a notable interruption of their routine, socially sanctioned role behavior.
1911J. Ward Realm of Ends xii. 255 The mass-points of the modern physicist..Leibniz held to be only phenomenal. 1956E. H. Hutten Lang. Mod. Physics vi. 243 Newtonian mechanics..treats only of such phenomena as can be described in terms of a few concepts, e.g. masspoint, force, etc. 1971Amer. Jrnl. Physics XXXIX. 484/2 Consider a finite one-dimensional mass-point lattice in which nearest neighbors are joined by massless ideal springs.
1943Electronic Engin. XVI. 108 Equipment for mass radiography installed in a large industrial concern for examination of the workers. 1954E. Jenkins Tortoise & Hare x. 114 These mobile X-ray units for mass radiography. 1971Brit. Med. Bull. XXVII. 93/2 Of the people screened by mass radiography..a large number have disabilities that warrant referral to a medical practitioner.
1946A. S. Eddington Fund. Theory ii. 32 (heading) Mass-ratio of the proton and electron. 1949W. Ley Conquest of Space (1950) i. 26 The mass-ratio is 2·7:1—that is,..the rocket at take-off weighs 2·7 times as much as its empty hull, machinery and payload. 1958New Scientist 9 Jan. 19 To obtain an intercontinental range of 2,500 miles requires a mass ratio of 12:1, to achieve a satellite orbit requires a ratio of 25:1, and to escape to the Moon needs a ratio of 100:1... The German V2 had a mass ratio of only 3·2:1. 1968R. A. Lyttleton Mysteries Solar Syst. i. 42 The Earth and Mars can be paired together satisfactorily as components resulting from a single rotationally unstable planet since their mass-ratio is as high as 9:1.
1917Head & Riddoch in Brain XL. 233 It is evident, therefore, that under certain conditions the spinal cord below the level of the lesion may show signs of diffuse reflex activity. Scratching the sole of the foot may not only evoke a flexor spasm, but may cause premature evacuation of the bladder and an outburst of excessive sweating. This we have spoken of as a ‘mass-reflex’. 1970M. Hollander tr. Monnier's Functions Nervous Syst. II. xii. 242 A mass reflex is an irradiation phenomenon consisting of flexion of the legs with visceromotor reflexes: sweating, micturition and defecation.
1902J. J. Thomson in Encycl. Brit. XXVIII. 5/1 We may express the resistivity [of a metal] by stating the resistance in ohms offered by a wire of the material in uniform cross-section, one metre in length, and one gramme in weight. This numerical measure of the resistivity is called the Mass-Resistivity.
1920F. W. Aston in Phil. Mag. XXXIX. 611 The Positive Ray Spectrograph or, as it may be more conveniently termed, Mass-Spectrograph. 1945H. D. Smyth Gen. Acct. Devel. Atomic Energy Mil. Purposes x. 109 Kellex, whose mass spectrograph methods of isotope analysis were sufficiently advanced as to become of great value to the project, as in analyzing samples of enriched uranium. 1963J. B. Farmer in C. A. McDowell Mass Spectrometry ii. 8 The primary, although not the exclusive, task of mass spectrographs is..mass comparison... Mass spectrometers are primarily useful for work involving abundance determination.
1935Proc. R. Soc. A. CL. 253 The masses which we have suggested give a much closer fit with the observed transmutation data than do the mass-spectrographic values. 1957G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. iii. 215 The more modern mass spectrographic determinations..indicate very clearly that..the D and O18 contents [of water] vary concomitantly.
1932Physical Rev. XL. 429 A new type of mass spectrometer..in which no magnetic fields are used. 1955New Biol. XVIII. 66 It is possible by using a mass-spectrometer to determine the proportions of heavy nitrogen, N15, and the normally more abundant isotope, N14, in a given sample. 1963Mass spectrometer [see mass spectrograph above]. 1966A. J. Ahearn Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Solids i. 2 In the past, the term mass spectrometer was reserved for electrical detection. However, the term mass spectrometry is now the generally accepted designation for this mass analysis technique regardless of the type of detection employed. 1969Price & Williams Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry p. ix, There are now about 300 time-of-flight mass spectrometers in use throughout the world.
1966D. G. Brandon Mod. Techniques Metallogr. iii. 124 We shall also consider the possibility of ion-bombarding a specimen to sputter a thin layer from the surface, followed by a mass-spectrometric analysis of the atoms in this layer. Ibid. 172 The surface of the sample is bombarded by positive ions, and the sputtered ions are collected and analysed mass-spectrometrically.
1952(title) Mass spectrometry (Inst. Petroleum, London). 1974Nature 29 Mar. 458/1 The first fraction..was evaporated to dryness and subjected to mass spectrometry... Molecular ions at m/e 420 and m/e 448 are consistent with the product being a mixture of palmitic and stearic aldehyde 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazones.
1958H. E. Duckworth Mass Spectroscopy 204 Mass spectroscopes. 1963J. B. Farmer in C. A. McDowell Mass Spectrometry ii. 7 The term mass spectroscope is applied to any device which has the ability to separate gaseous ions according to mass-charge ratio.
1938R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity (ed. 2) xix. 178 Mass-spectroscopic investigations. 1968M. S. Livingston Particle Physics vi. 120 The results of mass-spectroscopic measurements have been summarized from time to time to deduce by least-squares analysis the best values of atomic masses.
1926R. W. Lawson tr. Hevesy & Paneth's Man. Radioactivity xviii. 135 Not until the method of mass-spectroscopy had been devised and developed was it possible to establish that many of the ordinary elements are..mixed elements. 1958H. E. Duckworth Mass Spectroscopy i. 10 For many years photographic plates had served as the standard ion detectors in mass spectroscopy, but in the early 1930's these began to be supplanted by systems of electrical detection.
1920F. W. Aston in Phil. Mag. XXXIX. 611 (heading) The mass-spectra of chemical elements. Ibid. 625 A positive ray spectrograph capable of giving a focussed mass-spectrum is..described. 1966Encycl. Industr. Chem. Analysis II. 465 Mass spectra are related in a direct and simple way to molecular structure, thereby providing a unique and characteristic spectrum for each molecule which can be vaporized in the ion source.
1937W. H. Walker et al. Princ. Chem. Engin. (ed. 3) xiv. 447 The mass transfer from the main body of the gas to the interface can be visualized as meeting two resistances in series, that of the turbulent main body of gas and that of the gas film. 1962J. C. Wright Metall. in Nucl. Power Technol. ix. 169 Mass transfer between ferrous constructional materials and a sodium coolant circuit is accelerated if the oxygen content exceeds 30 p.p.m. by weight. 1971R. Hardbottle tr. Grassman's Physical Princ. Chem. Engin. ix. 553 A typical feature of mass transfer is the slowing down of transfer of the migrating components by components not participating in mass transfer.
1942Pollard & Davidson Appl. Nucl. Physics v. 74 If a positron is emitted it must be treated as costing 0·0011 mass unit or 1 Mev extra. 1953Barnett & Wilson Inorg. Chem. iv. 28 There has been a loss of 0·0184 mass units. 1966Gucker & Seifert Physical Chem. (1967) ii. 25 Prior to 1961 two different mass units were used: the physical mass unit..and the chemical mass unit.
1876Maxwell Matter & Motion lix. 50 Let us define a mass-vector as the operation of carrying a given mass from the origin to the given point. The direction of the mass-vector is the same as that of the vector of the mass, but its magnitude is the product of the mass into the vector of the mass.
1951Ohio Jrnl. Sci. LI. 299 (heading) Mass wasting, classification and damage in Ohio. 1968R. W. Fairbridge Encycl. Geomorphol. 697/2 Frequently the immediate cause of mass wasting can be related directly to changes in shearing stress brought about by (1) increase in the weight of materials, (2) withdrawal of support, or (3) earth tremors.
1914O. Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. II. v. 115 Words which represent ‘uncountables’..are here called mass-words; they may be either material..such as silver, quicksilver, water, butter,..or else immaterial, such as leisure, music, traffic, progress, [etc.]. 1935Jrnl. Eng. & Germ. Philol. XXXIV. 429 Masswords (like gold, embers, knowledge). 1954Pei & Gaynor Dict. Ling. 133 Mass-word, Jespersen's term for words denoting concepts, properties or things which ordinarily cannot be separated into distinct component units.
Add:[10.] mass democracy.
1934H. G. Wells Exper. Autobiogr. I. v. 264 Lenin conjured government by *mass-democracy out of sight..by his reorganization of the Communist Party so as to make it a directive élite. 1990Current Hist. Dec. 417/2 The Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU) became Bulgaria's party of mass democracy, aiming to bring Bulgaria's peasant majority into full participation in the country's political life.
[d.] mass extinction Biol., an episode of extinction involving numerous species or higher taxa.
1956Evolution X. 101/1 Perhaps it is futile to search for a single cause for all of the great *mass extinctions. 1990M. J. Benton Vertebrate Palaeont. iv. 100 The biggest mass extinction of all time took place at the end of the Permian.., and the tetrapods were involved. Of the 37 families that were present in the last 5 Myr of the Permian.., 27 died out (a loss of 73%).
mass line, in Maoist China: a system of arriving at policy decisions, based on direct and repeated consultation between leaders and led.
1950People's China 1 July 7/1 The General Programme and detailed provisions of the Party Constitution lay particular stress on the Party's mass line... Our mass line is a class line, a mass line of the proletariat. 1964Kang Chao in D. J. Dwyer China Now (1974) xiii. 261 The factors that impaired the morale of managerial and technical personnel were different. Under the slogans ‘politics takes command’ and ‘reliance on the mass line’, the administrative system within an enterprise underwent considerable disruption... Experts had to listen to non-experts in technical matters. 1981J. B. Grieder Intellectuals & State in Mod. China viii. 333 The strategy of the Mass Line—that is, the idea that ‘educating the people’ and ‘learning from the people’ are inseparable dimensions of the same dialectical process.
mass transit chiefly N.Amer. [transit n. 1 c (b)], a large-scale coordinated system of public transport in a city.
1972Village Voice (N.Y.) 1 June 10/2 They piously explain how electricity is needed to save the environment through sewage treatment plants and mass transit. 1992Air Canada en Route Aug. 50/2 The streetcars rumbling past are probably the only reminder that this is a place big enough to warrant mass transit.
▪ III. † mass, n.3 Obs.
[a. Du. maas.]
A mesh.
1641S. Smith Herring Buss Trade 3 Four Deepings of 70 Masses apiece, makes a Net.
▪ IV. mass, v.1 Now rare or Obs.|mæs|
Forms: 1 mæssian, 3 messe, massi, 5 massy, 6–7 masse, 6– mass.
[OE. mæssian, f. mæsse mass n.1]
1. intr. To celebrate mass; to say or sing mass. (From 16th c. used derisively.) † Also to mass it and with cognate obj.
c1000ælfric Saint's Lives (1900) II. 276 He..eode to cyrcan and sona mæssode. a1225Ancr. R. 268 Ase ofte ase þe preost messeð & sacreð þet meidenes bearn, Jesu. c1290St. Miȝhel 129 in S. Eng. Leg. I. 303 Ȝwane huy a-rereth anie churche, to massi Inne. 1453in Trevelyan P. (Camden) 84 Item, the chaplan, and all his successours, shall attend..unto ten of the clocke, and then massy. 1546Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1550) 60 b, He massed without consecracion, he gaue holye orders in hys stable [etc.]. 1562Answ. Apol. Priv. Mass iii. 19 In one churche ye shal haue at one time .vii. or .viii. massing in sundry corners. 1570Durham Depos. (Surtees) 157 He..came to Robert Peirson..being redy to go to masse, and said to hym ‘Do you masse this?’ And he..said, ‘Ye’. 1624Bp. R. Montagu Gagg 57 Your morrow Massmungers when they masse it alone. 1677W. Hughes Man of Sin ii. ii. 219 He [Silvester II.] perceived his death whilst he was Massing. 1851S. Wilberforce Let. in R. S. Wilberforce Life (1881) II. iv. 124 What blind belief in a priest massing for them!
†2. To hear mass. Obs. rare.
c1770J. Granger Lett. (1805) ii. 70 Chapel so contrived that men and women may mass, and not see one another.
3. trans. in occasional uses: To subject to the operation of the mass; to pass away (time) at mass.
1546Bale Eng. Votaries i. (1560) 92 b, They are..Mattensed, Massed, Candeled, Lighted, Processioned,..Perfumed and worshypped. 1784R. Bage Barham Downs II. 89 And I find the ancient might sacrifice, and the modern Mass away a dozen hours per diem in all holiness.
▪ V. mass, v.2|mæs|
Also (? 4 mace), 7 masse.
[a. F. masser (from 13th c.), f. masse mass n.2]
1. trans. To form or gather into a mass; to collect, arrange, or bring together in masses. † Also with up, to heap up, to amass.
The first quot. is doubtful: the word may be miswritten for y-maked.
c1380Sir Ferumb. 3326 Her with-inne ys gold y-maced faste to cast out day & nyȝt. 1604T. Wright Passions vi. 343 When the rich man hath massed vp his treasures. 1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. i. 206 If thou aske these men, why they masse vp money. 1820Shelley Sensit. Pl. iii. 33 Indian plants..Leaf after leaf, day after day Were massed into the common clay. 1827H. Steuart Planter's G. (1828) 513 The style, in which the removed are mixed and massed up with the older Trees. 1849M. Arnold To Gipsy Child 4 Who mass'd, round that slight brow, these clouds of doom? 1898Rev. Brit. Pharm. 27 The whole being mixed and massed with kaolin 115 gr.
b. Painting.
1753Hogarth Anal. Beauty xiii. 112 Painters..divide theirs [sc. compositions] into fore-ground, middle-ground, and distance or back-ground; which simple and distinct quantities mass together that variety which entertains the eye. 1843Ruskin Mod. Paint. I. ii. ii. v. §18 It is impossible to go too finely, or think too much about details in landscape, so that they be rightly arranged and rightly massed.
c. Mil.; also, to ‘concentrate’ (troops) in a particular place.
1861Musgrave By-roads 305 Instead of dispersing their force in brigades..they massed them in phalanx form. 1878R. B. Smith Carthage 116 His infantry he masses much more closely together and in much deeper formations than was common among the Romans. 1885Manch. Examiner 10 Nov. 4/6 Austria is massing troops in Herzegovina.
d. Law. to mass an estate: see quot.
1896H. H. Juta Selection of Leading Cases ii. 111 The language of the Privy Council in clause (a) [viz. the mutual will disposes of the joint property on the death of the survivor, or, as it is sometimes expressed, where the property is consolidated into one mass for the purpose of a joint disposition of it] has given rise to the expression ‘massing of an estate’. Ibid., By the mutual will in that case only part of the joint estate was ‘massed’.
†2. ? To occupy with a mass of soldiers. Obs.
a1627Hayward Edw. VI (1630) 108 They feared least..the French might..either with filling or massing the house, or else by fortifying make such a piece as might annoy the haven.
3. refl. and intr. To collect, assemble, or come together in masses.
1563Reg. Privy Council Scot. I. 248 The Clangregour..hes massit thame selfis in greit cumpanyis bot als [etc.]. 1861Tulloch Eng. Purit. ii. 282 His reasonings run in great lines, or mass in blocks of system. 1869Ruskin Q. of Air §16 But all these virtues mass themselves in the Greek mind into the two main ones. 1879Stevenson Trav. Cevennes 74 The weather had somewhat lightened, and the clouds massed in squadron. 1892W. Pike North. Canada 45 The great bands of caribou..mass up on the edge of the woods.
†4. Gaming. To set the ‘mass’ or stake. Obs.—0
1727Boyer Fr. Dict., Masser, (Terme de jeu de Hazard) to mass, lay, or set.
▪ VI. mass, v.3 rare.
[ad. F. masser: see massage.]
trans. To massage. (Cf. massing vbl. n.3)
1786Misc. in Ann. Reg. 119/1 A servant..then masses, and seems to knead the body without giving the slightest sensation of pain. 1888D. Maguire Art of Massage (ed. 4) 42 In going from one extremity to the other of the part to be massed. Ibid. 56, I will commence my description of general massage by that of massing the superior members.
▪ VII. mass
obs. form of mace n.1 |