masses Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the common people generally
    people; the great unwashed; mass; hoi polloi; multitude.
    • separate the warriors from the mass
    • power to the people
  2. noun the property of a body that causes it to have weight in a gravitational field
    mass.
  3. noun (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
    plenty; great deal; pot; sight; flock; mint; slew; mountain; deal; wad; muckle; pile; lot; mickle; raft; quite a little; passel; hatful; mess; spate; heap; peck; stack; good deal; batch; tidy sum; mass.
    • a batch of letters
    • a deal of trouble
    • a lot of money
    • he made a mint on the stock market
    • see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos
    • it must have cost plenty
    • a slew of journalists
    • a wad of money
  4. noun an ill-structured collection of similar things (objects or people)
    mass.
  5. noun (Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches) the celebration of the Eucharist
    Mass.
  6. noun a body of matter without definite shape
    mass.
    • a huge ice mass
  7. noun the property of something that is great in magnitude
    bulk; volume; mass.
    • it is cheaper to buy it in bulk
    • he received a mass of correspondence
    • the volume of exports
  8. noun a musical setting for a Mass
    Mass.
    • they played a Mass composed by Beethoven
  9. noun a sequence of prayers constituting the Christian Eucharistic rite
    Mass.
    • the priest said Mass
  10. noun a shot in billiards made by hitting the cue ball with the cue held nearly vertically; the cue ball spins around another ball before hitting the object ball
    masse; masse shot.
  11. verb join together into a mass or collect or form a mass
    mass.
    • Crowds were massing outside the palace

WordNet