masterpiece

Etymology

It is a compound from English master + piece,^[2][3][4][5] probably modelled on Dutch meesterstuk or German Meisterstück,^[2][6][7][8] which named the piece of work by which a craftsman qualified for the rank of master in his guild.^[3][8] Klein takes it as a loan translation of the German word alone.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A work of outstanding skill, especially an artist's or writer's greatest: 1600, in the play The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll.^[2][7][3] Dictionary.com dates the word earlier, to 1570–80.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The guild sense of the Dutch and German words is the first sense in Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[7] but in English the general sense of supreme skill is recorded first.^[2] From 1607, in Ben Jonson's Volpone, it could be a person's greatest achievement,^[2] and Shakespeare's Macbeth has "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece".^[4] From 1612 to 1703 it also meant the chief excellence of a person or thing.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "any thing done or made with extraordinary skill".^[10] From 1648 it could be any remarkable person or thing, a use now colloquial and regional:^[2] in the dialects of Yorkshire, East Anglia, Devon and Cornwall a masterpiece was anything surprising or wonderful, and in West Yorkshire also a self-willed person.^[11] In 19th-century Australian criminal slang it was a skeleton key.^[12]

Timeline

• 1570–80 – the date Dictionary.com gives.^[5]
• 1600 – a work of outstanding skill.^[2][7]
• 1607 – a person's greatest achievement, in Jonson.^[2]
• 1612 – the chief excellence of something (obsolete by 1703).^[2]
• 1648 – a remarkable person or thing.^[2]
• 1865 – (Australian slang) a skeleton key.^[12]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A work of outstanding artistry or skill: The old bridge is a masterpiece of Victorian engineering.
2. The greatest work of an artist, writer or craftsman.
3. An outstanding example of something: a masterpiece of tact.
4. (historical) A piece of work presented to a guild by a craftsman to qualify as a master.
5. (dialect) Something surprising or wonderful.

Related words

• masterwork
• master
• piece
• masterly

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com