See Also: Mass(medicine)
mass(dictionary)
mass(4)(dictionary)
mass(3)(dictionary)
Mass.(dictionary)
mass(2)(dictionary)
mass(encyclopedia)
air mass(encyclopedia)
mass law(medicine)
unit of mass(medicine)

mass(2) (iou)



mass noun2 & adjective. [mas] LME.
[Old & mod. French masse from Latin massa from Greek maza barley-cake, perh. rel. to massein knead.]
A. noun.
A coherent body of fusible or plastic material (as dough or clay), not yet fashioned into objects of definite shape; a lump of raw material for moulding, casting, etc. obsolete exc. as passing into sense 2. LME.
b. A kind of matter able to be fashioned or moulded. L15-E18.
c. An amorphous quantity of material used in or remaining after a chemical or pharmaceutical operation. M16.
A coherent body of matter of unspecified shape, often one of relatively large bulk; a solid physical object; Medicine a tumour or growth that is palpable or visible. LME.
W. R. Grove When the magnet as a mass is in motion. J. Tyndall Adjacent to us rose the mighty mass of the Finsteraarhorn.
b. Medicine. The whole quantity of blood in an animal body. E17-M18.
A dense aggregation of objects apparently forming a continuous body; a large quantity, amount, or number (of material or immaterial things); an oppressively or bewilderingly large amount. Freq. in pl. L15.
Ld Macaulay They removed a vast mass of evil. J. Irving The mass of logs..moved swiftly downstream. S. Bellow Uncle knew masses of stuff about plants.
b. spec. A large sum of money, treasure, etc.; ellipt. a stock, a fund. M16-E18.
T. Fuller Keeping their money for them till it amounted to a mass.
c. Foll. by of: a person or thing viewed (hyperbolically) as consisting of a large number of the things specified. E17.
S. Smiles The Church itself was seen to be a mass of abuses. L. Cody This shoulder's going to be..a mass of bruises in the morning.
d. An extensive unbroken expanse of colour, light, shadow, etc.; any of the several main portions each having some unity in colour, lighting etc., which the eye distinguishes in a painting etc. M17.
I. Zangwill The occasional fineness of line, the masterly distribution of masses.
e. A volume or body of sound; Music the effect of a large number of instruments or voices of the same character. L19.
a. Solid bulk, massiveness. E17.
Shakespeare Hamlet This army of such mass and charge.
b. Physics. The quantity of matter which a body contains, as measured by its acceleration under a given force or by the force exerted on it by a gravitational field. E18.
E. Rutherford The helium nucleus has a mass nearly four times that of hydrogen.
A large number of people collected closely together or viewed as forming an aggregate in which their individuality is lost; the generality of humankind, the main body of a nation, people, etc.; (usu. in pl.) the ordinary people. E18.
C. Connolly What illness performs for the individual, war accomplishes for the mass. J. Higgins Cussane liked seaside towns, especially the ones that catered for the masses. M. Foot Some hours later he stood on tiptoe amid a heaving, breathless mass.
Phrases: ATOMIC mass. centre of mass: see CENTRE noun. CRITICAL mass. GRAVITATIONAL mass. in mass en masse, bodily, all at once. in the mass without distinction of component parts or individuals. levy in mass: see LEVY noun1 2. MISSING mass. relative atomic mass, relative molecular mass: see RELATIVE adjective. solar mass: see SOLAR adjective1. the mass of, the great mass of the greater part or majority of.
b. attrib. or as adjective. Relating to, done by, or affecting large numbers of people or things; large-scale. M18.
D. DeLillo A brief pause before the mass wailing recommenced. E. Longford George V had had to support his Prime Minister..with a mass creation of Liberal peers. City Limits You can't blame the communities for not coping with mass unemployment.
Comb. & special collocations: mass action (a) law of mass action (Chemistry), the principle that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to the masses of the reacting substances; (b) the action of a mass of people; mass defect Physics the sum of the masses of the constituent particles of an atomic nucleus, as free individuals, minus the mass of the nucleus (a quantity which effectively represents the binding energy of the nucleus); mass effect (a) Metallurgy the effect of size and shape in causing different rates of cooling in different parts of an object following heat treatment; (b) sing. & (usu.) in pl., a total or grand effect; (c) an effect due to or dependent on mass; mass-energy Physics mass and energy regarded as interconvertible manifestations of the same phenomenon, according to the laws of relativity; the mass of a body regarded relativistically as energy; mass man a hypothetical average man; esp. one regarded as lacking individuality and being dominated by the mass media; mass market the market for mass-produced goods; mass-market verb trans. market (a product) on a large scale; mass medium a medium of communication (such as radio, television, newspapers) that reaches a large number of people; usu. in pl., such media collectively; mass meeting a meeting of a large body of people; esp. a meeting of all or most of the members of a workforce etc.; mass noun Grammar a noun denoting something (as a substance or quality) which cannot be counted, in English usu. a noun which in common usage lacks a plural and is not used with an indefinite article (opp. count noun); mass number Nuclear Physics the total number of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus; mass observation (chiefly Hist.) the study and recording of the social habits and opinions of ordinary people; mass-point Physics an entity conceived as having mass but (like a geometrical point) lacking spatial extension; mass-produce verb trans. manufacture by mass production; mass production the production of manufactured articles in large quantities by a standardized process; mass radiography radiography of the chests of large numbers of people by a quick routine method; mass-ratio the ratio of the mass of a fully fuelled rocket to that of the same rocket without fuel; mass society: in which the population is largely homogeneous and is strongly influenced by the mass media; mass spectrograph a mass spectrometer which employs photographic detection of the deflected ions; mass spectrometer, mass spectroscope an apparatus which ionizes material, forms the ions into a beam, separates the ions 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 detects them, usu. electrically, producing a mass spectrum; mass spectrometry, mass spectroscopy the use of the mass spectrometer to analyse substances; mass spectrum a record obtained with a mass spectrometer, in which ions from a sample are represented as dispersed according to their mass-to-charge ratio; mass transit the provision of an extensive, coordinated system of public transport in a city, urban area, etc.