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MASS
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Irregular inflected form: masses
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches) the celebration of the Eucharist
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("Mass" is a kind of...):
religious ceremony; religious ritual (a ceremony having religious meaning)
Domain category:
Church of Rome; Roman Catholic; Roman Catholic Church; Roman Church; Western Church (the Christian Church based in the Vatican and presided over by a pope and an episcopal hierarchy)
Protestant; Protestant Church (the Protestant churches and denominations collectively)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Mass"):
High Mass (a solemn and elaborate Mass with music)
Low Mass (a Mass recited without music)
Requiem (a Mass celebrated for the dead)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The property of a body that causes it to have weight in a gravitational field
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
physical property (any property used to characterize matter and energy and their interactions)
fundamental measure; fundamental quantity (one of the four quantities that are the basis of systems of measurement)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
body (the main mass of a thing)
biomass (the total mass of living matter in a given unit area)
critical mass (the minimum mass of fissionable material that can sustain a chain reaction)
rest mass ((physics) the mass of a body as measured when the body is at rest relative to an observer, an inherent property of the body)
relativistic mass ((physics) the mass of a body in motion relative to the observer: it is equal to the rest mass multiplied by a factor that is greater than 1 and that increases as the magnitude of the velocity increases)
bulk (the property possessed by a large mass)
gravitational mass ((physics) the mass of a body as measured by its gravitational attraction for other bodies)
inertial mass ((physics) the mass of a body as determined by the second law of motion from the acceleration of the body when it is subjected to a force that is not due to gravity)
atomic mass; atomic weight; relative atomic mass ((chemistry) the mass of an atom of a chemical element expressed in atomic mass units)
mass energy ((physics) the mass of a body regarded relativistically as energy)
molecular weight; relative molecular mass ((chemistry) the sum of the relative atomic masses of the constituent atoms of a molecule)
mass defect; mass deficiency (the amount by which the mass of an atomic nucleus is less than the sum of the masses of its constituent particles)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The property of something that is great in magnitude
Example:
the volume of exports
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
magnitude (the property of relative size or extent (whether large or small))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
dollar volume; turnover (the volume measured in dollars)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A sequence of prayers constituting the Christian Eucharistic rite
Example:
the priest said Mass
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("Mass" is a kind of...):
prayer (a fixed text used in praying)
Sense 5
Meaning:
A musical setting for a Mass
Example:
they played a Mass composed by Beethoven
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("Mass" is a kind of...):
church music; religious music (genre of music composed for performance as part of religious ceremonies)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Mass"):
Requiem (a musical setting for a Mass celebrating the dead)
Holonyms ("Mass" is a part of...):
High Mass (a solemn and elaborate Mass with music)
Sense 6
Meaning:
An ill-structured collection of similar things (objects or people)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
accumulation; aggregation; assemblage; collection (several things grouped together or considered as a whole)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
logjam (an immovable mass of logs blocking a river)
shock (a bushy thick mass (especially hair))
Derivation:
mass (join together into a mass or collect or form a mass)
Sense 7
Meaning:
The common people generally
Example:
power to the people
Synonyms:
hoi polloi; mass; masses; multitude; people; the great unwashed
Classified under:
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
group; grouping (any number of entities (members) considered as a unit)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
laity; temporalty (in Christianity, members of a religious community that do not have the priestly responsibilities of ordained clergy)
audience (the part of the general public interested in a source of information or entertainment)
followers; following (a group of followers or enthusiasts)
Sense 8
Meaning:
A body of matter without definite shape
Example:
a huge ice mass
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
body (an individual 3-dimensional object that has mass and that is distinguishable from other objects)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
coprolith; faecalith; fecalith; stercolith (a hard mass of fecal matter)
drift (a large mass of material that is heaped up by the wind or by water currents)
mat (a mass that is densely tangled or interwoven)
mush; pulp (any soft or soggy mass)
Sense 9
Meaning:
(often followed by 'of') a large number or amount or extent
Example:
a wad of money
Synonyms:
batch; deal; flock; good deal; great deal; hatful; heap; lot; mass; mess; mickle; mint; mountain; muckle; passel; peck; pile; plenty; pot; quite a little; raft; sight; slew; spate; stack; tidy sum; wad
Classified under:
Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure
Hypernyms ("mass" is a kind of...):
large indefinite amount; large indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mass"):
deluge; flood; inundation; torrent (an overwhelming number or amount)
haymow (a mass of hay piled up in a barn for preservation)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Formed of separate units gathered into a mass or whole
Example:
the aggregated amount of indebtedness
Synonyms:
aggregate; aggregated; aggregative; mass
Classified under:
Similar:
collective (forming a whole or aggregate)
III. (verb)
Verb forms
Present simple: I / you / we / they mass ... he / she / it masses
Past simple: massed
Past participle: massed
-ing form: massing
Sense 1
Meaning:
Join together into a mass or collect or form a mass
Example:
Crowds were massing outside the palace
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Hypernyms (to "mass" is one way to...):
crowd; crowd together (to gather together in large numbers)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "mass"):
press (crowd closely)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP
Sentence example:
The crowds mass in the streets
Derivation:
mass (an ill-structured collection of similar things (objects or people))
Context examples:
It is one of the most extreme of the systems for which the mass and spin rate have ever been measured.
(NuSTAR sees rare blurring of black hole light, NASA)
This he opened and took out a mass of documents, which we went over together.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
An instrument that is able to determine the mass of a sample with a high degree of precision.
(Analytical Balance, NCI Thesaurus)
A substance that makes particles (such as bacteria or cells) stick together to form a clump or a mass.
(Agglutinin, NCI Dictionary)
Signs and symptoms include abdominal mass, hemoperitoneum, and ascites.
(Adult Type Granulosa Cell Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)
“Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Adnexal masses include ovarian cysts, ectopic (tubal) pregnancies, and benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancer) tumors.
(Adnexal mass, NCI Dictionary)
We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
It usually presents as a slowly growing mass and it frequently metastasizes to other anatomic sites.
(Alveolar soft part sarcoma, NCI Thesaurus)
The moisture from his breath had collected on his beard and frozen into a great mass of ice, and this he proceeded to thaw out.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
