Etymologically
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mast

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Pronunciation

  • /mɑːst/, /mæst/[1]
  • US: /mæst/[1]

mast1 ship's pole

Etymology

The ship's pole is inherited from Middle English mast,[2][3] inherited from Old English mæst,[4][3][2][5] which goes back through Proto-West Germanic *mast[1] to Proto-Germanic *mastaz (“mast, sail-pole”).[4][3][1] It is cognate with Middle Dutch mast, Dutch mast, Middle Low German mast, Old High German mast and German Mast;[3][6][7] Old Norse mastr is listed by Etymonline, but the Shorter Oxford takes the Scandinavian forms from Middle Low German.[4][8][6] The Romance languages borrowed it, as in French mât and Portuguese masto.[9][6] The Germanic word comes from Proto-Indo-European *mazdos (“pole, mast”),[4][3][1] also the source of Old Irish matan (“club”) and Middle Irish maide (“stick”).[4][10][11] Most dictionaries also compare Latin mālus (“mast”),[4][3][10][12] which Barnhart thinks may have been influenced by pālus (“stake”);[3][13] Kroonen finds the Latin link hard to maintain and notes that the word is shared only by the Celtic and Germanic languages.[11] Wiktionary compares Russian мост (most, “bridge”),[1] which Kroonen takes to be a Slavic borrowing from Germanic.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The pole of a ship that carries the sails: about 725, in Beowulf,[3][5] and the OED's first quotation is from King Ælfred's translation of Boethius.[6] In Middle English it is recorded probably before 1200, in Layamon's Brut.[3]

Semantic evolution

Weekley explains that the single mast of the early ship was the boundary between officers and crew,[9] and so before the mast meant in the forecastle where ordinary seamen lived, and hence serving as one (1480).[6][4] From 1353 to 1842 mast also meant a tree trunk fit to make a mast.[6] From 1544 the word was applied to any upright pole like a ship's mast, later one carrying a flag, a lightning conductor or a broadcasting aerial.[6][10] Since 1614 the mainmast has been the place on board where a captain holds hearings, hence at the mast.[6][14] The verb, to furnish with masts, is recorded from 1512 in the OED and about 1513 in Merriam-Webster,[6][10] and masthead, the top of a mast, from 1748; in American English it also became the part of a periodical giving its title (1838).[3]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – mæst, in Beowulf.[3]
  • before 1200 – Middle English mast, in Layamon.[3]
  • 1353 – a piece of timber fit for a mast (obsolete after 1842).[6]
  • 1480 – before the mast, in the seamen's quarters.[6]
  • 1512 – verb, to fit a ship with masts.[6]
  • 1544 – an upright pole resembling a ship's mast.[6]
  • 1614 – the mainmast as the place of a court hearing on board.[6]
  • 1748 – masthead.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A tall upright spar or pole on a ship or boat that supports the sails and rigging.[14][10][6]
  2. Any tall upright pole or structure, such as one carrying a flag or a broadcasting aerial.[14][10][6]
  3. (nautical) A hearing held by a ship's captain into minor offences of the crew, also called captain's mast.[14][6]

Verb

  1. To fit a ship with a mast or masts.[10][6][14]

Word family

  • masted
  • mastless
  • masthead
  • dismast
  • foremast
  • mainmast
  • mizzenmast

mast2 nuts as food for swine

Etymology

The fruit of forest trees is inherited from Middle English mast,[3] inherited from Old English mæst,[4][3][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *mastaz.[3][11] It is cognate with Middle Dutch mast, Old Saxon mastfugul (“fattened bird”), Old High German mast (“feeding, fattening, mast”) and German Mast (“fattening”),[6][3][11] and the Old English verb mæstan (“to fatten”) belongs with it, as do mästen and Dutch mesten.[4][11][9] It is probably related to meat, mete (“food”).[3][8][15][10] Its further origin is unsettled: Etymonline suggests Proto-Indo-European *mad- (“moist, wet”), also the source of Latin madeō (“to be sodden”),[4] while Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *mosd-o-, compares a Sanskrit word for fat and marrow, and thinks Old Irish mess belongs here, since acorns and beechnuts were fed to pigs.[11][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The fruit of beech, oak and other forest trees, fallen and eaten by pigs: Old English, in 825 according to Barnhart, in charters that count woodland by the number of swine its mast would feed.[3][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English maste is recorded about 1300 for a place where swine were fed, and mast for the nuts themselves about 1380, in Chaucer's The Former Age.[3] From about 1577 to 1664 pigs were put to mast, turned out to feed on it.[6] Between 1585 and 1592 the word was also used of any rich or fattening food.[6] The related verb mast, to feed animals on mast or fatten them, lasted from Old English to about 1440, and later meant to eat greedily (to 1647).[6]

Timeline

  • 825 – Old English mæst.[3]
  • c. 1300 – maste, a feeding ground for swine.[3]
  • c. 1380 – mast, in Chaucer's The Former Age.[3]
  • ?1577 – to put to mast (obsolete by 1664).[6]
  • 1585 – rich or fattening food (obsolete).[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Nuts such as acorns, beechnuts and chestnuts lying on the forest floor, especially as food for pigs and other animals.[10][14][6]

Word family

  • beechmast

Usage notes

Several minor words share the spelling: an obsolete mast, a heavy billiard cue (1731–1873), from French masse;[6][10][8] a kind of yogurt eaten in Iran (1819), borrowed from Persian;[6] and in north-eastern English dialect mast of tea, to brew (1963).[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press