Word.ws English Dictionary

maistry

maistry is the obsolete form of mastery.

Noun

maistry (plural maistries)

  1. (India, obsolete) A foreman.
    • Anstruther laughed good-naturedly. “Well, yes, of a kind. I shall take out half a dozen intelligent maistries from our Press and get them to give our villagers instruction when they begin work and when they are in the fields.”1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 5, in Pulling the Strings
  2. (India, obsolete) Any artisan, such as a cook or a tailor.

Meaning of mastery

Noun

mastery (usually uncountable, plural masteries)

  1. (usually) The position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority.
    • If divided by mountains, they will fight for the mastery of the passages of the tops.c. 1610, Sir Walter Raleigh, The Misery of Invasive War
  2. (usually) Superiority in war or competition; victory; triumph; preeminence.
    • They were faire Ladies, till they fondly ſtriu’d / With th’Heliconian maides for mayſtery; / Of whom they ouer-comen, were depriu’d / Of their proud beautie, and th’one moyity / Transform’d to fiſh, for their bold ſurquedry, / But th’vpper halfe their hew retayned ſtill, / And their ſweet skill in...1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31, pages 370–371
  3. (usually) The act or process of mastering; the state of having mastered; expertise.
    • He […]could attain to a mastery in all languages.1664, John Tillotson, “Sermon I. The Wisdom of Being Religious. Job XXVIII. 28.”, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: […], London: […] B. Aylmer...
  4. (obsolete, usually) A contest for superiority.
    • […] pastimes of wrestling, and like maſteries betweene the Citizens of London and others of the Suburbes […]1623, John Speed, The Historie of Great Britain Under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, page 596
  5. (obsolete, usually) A masterly operation; a feat.
    • Ye welsh men..brake out vpon the Englysshe men in ye Bordour..and there made masteryes for a whyle.1516, Robert Fabyan, New cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce
  6. (obsolete, usually) The philosopher's stone.

Forms of maistry

pluralmaistries
alternative formmistry

Origin of maistry

Borrowed from Hindi मिस्त्री (mistrī), from Portuguese mestre.

Questions about maistry

What does maistry mean?
Maistry means a foreman.
What is maistry the obsolete form of?
Maistry is the obsolete form of mastery.
What part of speech is maistry?
Maistry is a noun.
What is the plural of maistry?
The plural of maistry is maistries.

Words near maistry in the dictionary

  1. Maistrenko
  2. maistres
  3. maistrie
  4. maistries
  5. maistring
  6. maistry
  7. Maisy
  8. maitake
  9. maitakes
  10. maitansine
  11. Maitham

Source and license

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