master
Meanings
- Someone who has control over something or someone.
- The owner of an animal or slave.
- The captain of a merchant ship; a master mariner.
- A male head of household.
- Someone who employs others.
- An expert at something.
- A tradesman who is qualified to teach apprentices.
- A male schoolteacher.
- A skilled artist.
- A man or a boy; mister. See Master.
- A master's degree; a type of postgraduate degree, usually undertaken after a bachelor degree.
- A person holding such a degree.
- Masterful.
- Main, principal or predominant.
- Highly skilled.
- Original.
- To be a master.
- To become the master of; to subject to one's will, control, or authority; to conquer; to overpower; to subdue.
- To learn to a high degree of proficiency.
- To own; to possess.
- To make a master copy of.
- To earn a Master's degree.
- A vessel having a specified number of masts.
- Prepended to a boy's name or surname as a (now somewhat formal) form of address.
- A religious teacher, often as an honorific title.
- The title of the head of certain colleges and schools.
- A master's degree.
- A person holding a master's degree, as a title.
- The title of the eldest son of a Scots lord.
- The owner of a slave, in some literature.
- Used as the title of a dominant, especially a male one.
- One of the triune gods of the Horned God in Wicca alongside the Father and Sage and representing a boy or a young man.
- Mastercard
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *meǵh₂-der.? Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-der.? Proto-Italic *magisteros Latin magister, magistrum Old French maistrebor. ▲ Latin magisterder. Old English mǣġester Middle English maister English master From Middle English maister, mayster, meister (noun) and maistren (verb), from Old English mǣster, mæġster, mæġester, mæġister, magister (“master”), from Latin magister (“chief, teacher, leader”), from Old Latin magester, from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s (as in magnus (“great”), also cognate of English much and mickle) + -ester/-ister (compare minister (“servant”)). Reinforced by Old French maistre, mestre (noun) and maistriier, maister (verb) from the same Latin source. Compare also Saterland Frisian Mäster (“master”), West Frisian master (“master”), Dutch meester (“master”), German Meister (“master”). Doublet of maestro, magister, and meister.