Etymology: < Italian maschera mask n.³ Compare slightly earlier maskeler n.

Etymology: < mask v.⁴ + -er suffix¹.

Etymology: Probably the reflex of an unattested Old English verb implied also by the Old English verbal noun malscrung enchantment, formed (see -er suffix⁵) on the Germanic base of Middle Dutch malsc , malsch , mals reckless, arrogant, weak (Dutch mals , malsch soft), Old Saxon malsc proud, audacious (Middle Low German malsch , mals ), Gothic -malsks (only in un-tila-malsks reckless); perhaps ultimately < an ablaut variant of the Indo-European base of meal n.¹ (compare malm n.). Compare earlier masked adj.¹, and later amasked adj., mask v.¹, maskering adj., masking adj.¹There are five occurrences of the verbal noun malscrung in Old English texts, four in glossaries translating e.g. Latin fascinatio and one in a medical text in a list of supernatural afflictions; the form malscra in Bald's Leechbk. appears in a similar context, and may represent a transmission error or abbreviation for malscrunga (dative singular). With β. forms compare the Old English variant mascrunc , attested once in a glossary. Failure of palatalization and assibilation of /sk/ > /ʃ/ can perhaps be attributed to Scandinavian influence, since distribution of the verb is geographically restricted to the north and east of England in this period (though masked adj.¹ is attested earlier in a manuscript from the south-west midlands). Eng. Dial. Dict s.v. masker records the word in northern and north-midland counties, and notes the survival of the palatalized, assibilated form masher in 17th-cent. Staffordshire use.