Word.ws English Dictionary

half mast

half mast is the alternative form of half-mast.

Meaning of half-mast

Noun

half-mast (uncountable)

  1. The lowered position, half the height of a mast, at which a flag is flown when mourning, especially expressing respect for the deceased.
    • Any other UK national flags flown alongside the Union Flag when it is at half-mast should also be at half-mast.2016 October 13, Department for Culture, Media & Sport and Foreign & Commonwealth Office, "Flag-flying from UK government buildings for the death of the King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand", GOV.UK...
  2. (broadly) The lowered position of anything.
  3. (colloquial) An unfashionably short length of a pair of trousers.
    • I looked around. Ari in a green jacket with four inches of fore arm showing and trousers at half mast, Penny and I in mismatched padded jackets and ski trousers which were way too long; and all wearing the silver moon boots that had been the rage in the early eighties.2016, Jeff Payne, Rider (page 142)
  4. (euphemistic) The state of having a partially erect penis.
    • Finally, he was at half-mast, hanging out over the toilet seat, barely erect.2009, Stephen Cannell, At First Sight: A Novel of Obsession, Vanguard Press, →ISBN, page 227

See all 5 meanings of half-mast

Questions about half mast

What is half mast the alternative form of?
Half mast is the alternative form of half-mast.

Words near half mast in the dictionary

  1. half lit
  2. half marathon
  3. half marathons
  4. half mask
  5. half masks
  6. half mast
  7. half measure
  8. half measures
  9. half moon
  10. Half Moon Bay
  11. half moons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: half mast (page history and authors); half-mast (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: “half mast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/half_mast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.