mass
Definitions
General English
- noun a catholic church service
- noun the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, between L and N
General Science
- noun a large quantity or large number
- 1 048 576, equal to 220
Aviation
- adjective involving a large number of people or things
- noun the physical volume of a solid body
- noun a large body of something with no particular shape
Commerce
- noun a large group of people
Construction
- Property of a body that resists acceleration and produces the effect of inertia. The weight of a body is the result of the pull of gravity on its mass.
Electronics
- The quantity of matter in a body or medium. The mass of a body makes it resist acceleration, and gives it gravitational attraction. Its SI unit is the kilogram, and its symbol is m. The weight (1) of an object varies depending on the gravitational force exerted upon it, while its mass does not.
- A given body of matter.
- A large or very large amount.
- The principal part of something.
- symbolm
- A prefix which serves to produce derivative words pertaining to mobile communications concepts. For instance, m-business, or m-mail. It is an abbreviation of mobile.
Media Studies
- adjective large-scale, involving large numbers (of people, products etc.)
Medical
- noun a body of matter with no clear shape
- noun a mixture for making pills
- noun the main solid part of bone
Military
- noun a concentration of troops and firepower at a decisive point
Slang
- noun a gang or group of friends. A fashionable synonym for crew, set and posse in the mid-1990s. The term was recorded in use among North London schoolboys in 1993 and 1994.
- noun morphine. A drug users’ abbreviation.
Astronomy
- M type stars are the coolest of all, with surface temperatures of less than 3500°. Such stars are cool enough to allow some molecules – rather than just isolated atoms – to exist in their outer layers. M stars tend to be orange in colour and Betelgeuse in Orion is the classic member of the class.
- Prefix for object designations in the Messier Catalogue
Economics
- In economic models involving international trade, M is usually chosen to represent imports, and X to represent exports, perhaps because I and E have too many other uses.
Publishing
- prefix one million.
- prefix symbol for 1,048,576, used only in computer and electronic related applications.
Origin & History of “mass”
English has two distinct words mass. The one meaning ‘Eucharist’ (OE) comes from late Latin missa, a noun use of the feminine past participle of mittere ‘send’ (source of English admit, commit, dismiss, mission, etc) possibly arising from Ite, missa est ‘Go, it is the dismissal’, the last words of the Latin eucharist service.
Mass ‘amount of matter’ (14th c.) comes via Old French masse and Latin massa from Greek maza ‘barley cake’, hence ‘lump, mass’. The derivative massive (15th c.) goes back ultimately to vulgar Latin *massīceus. A possible relative is massage (19th c.), a borrowing from French. It was a derivative of masser ‘massage’, which may have been acquired from Portuguese amassar ‘knead’, a verb based on massa ‘mass, dough’.
Mass ‘amount of matter’ (14th c.) comes via Old French masse and Latin massa from Greek maza ‘barley cake’, hence ‘lump, mass’. The derivative massive (15th c.) goes back ultimately to vulgar Latin *massīceus. A possible relative is massage (19th c.), a borrowing from French. It was a derivative of masser ‘massage’, which may have been acquired from Portuguese amassar ‘knead’, a verb based on massa ‘mass, dough’.
