black mass
black mass noun: a ritual, allegedly celebrated by witches, characterized by the inversion of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church.
Noun (1)
black mass (plural black masses)
- A ritual, allegedly celebrated by witches, characterized by the inversion of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church.
- Local lore held that the quarry had once been the site of black masses.
- An enormous number of monks and priests gave themselves up to sorcery, and there was no lack of apostate priests to perform the ceremonies of the Black Mass.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 101
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see black, mass; especially, a dark amorphous blob.
- The paranormal investigators then aimed their cameras in the direction from which the black mass had been seen emerging.
Noun (2) capitalized: Black Mass
Black Mass (plural Black Masses)
- Alternative letter-case form of black mass (“evil ritual”).
- An enormous number of monks and priests gave themselves up to sorcery, and there was no lack of apostate priests to perform the ceremonies of the Black Mass.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 101
- As a parish priest in England he had dabbled in the black arts, seduced a number of his congregation from their faith and finally celebrated the Black Mass.1965, Attila Zohar, Kings Cross Black Magic, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 30
black mass meaning in Vietnamese
black mass in Vietnamese
- Translations
- tà lễ
Examples of black mass in a sentence
- Elmos and Maureen had draped their room in some old purple rags and were about to start a black mass when the police arrived.1970, Kevin Mackey, The Cure: Recollections of an Addict, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1972, page 93:
- Generals gathered in their masses / Just like witches at black masses1970, “War Pigs”, in Paranoid, performed by Black Sabbath:
Forms of black mass
| plural | black masses |
|---|---|
| plural | Black Masses |
Questions about black mass
- What does black mass mean?
- Black mass means a ritual, allegedly celebrated by witches, characterized by the inversion of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church.
- What is black mass in Vietnamese?
- Black mass in Vietnamese is tà lễ. See Black mass meaning in Vietnamese.
- How do you use black mass in a sentence?
- Elmos and Maureen had draped their room in some old purple rags and were about to start a black mass when the police arrived.
- What part of speech is black mass?
- Black mass is a noun.
- What is the plural of black mass?
- The plural of black mass is black masses.
Words near black mass in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: black mass (page history and authors); Black Mass (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “black mass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/black_mass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.