Word.ws English Dictionary

mars

UK/ˈmɑːz//ˈmɑɹz/

mars is the third-person singular simple present indicative of mar.

mars is the plural of mar.

Meaning of mar

Verb

mar (third-person singular simple present mars, present participle marring, simple past and past participle marred)

  1. (transitive) To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
    • […] and putteth ether many a good mā by ignorance in ieopardy of his life, or marreth good medicines to the great diſhoneſtie both of the Phiſician and of Goddes worthy creatures, the herbes and medecines:1551, William Turner, “Prologe”, in A new Herball, etc., folio Aiiii

See all 4 meanings of mar

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Mars

Mars (usually uncountable, plural (rare) Marses)

  1. (usually) The fourth planet in the solar system. Symbol: ♂
    • Mars has two moons, Deimos and Phobos.
    • ‘There’s another one. There can’t be two Marses,’ said Phyllis. / And sure enough there was. A smaller red point, a little up from, and to the right of, the first.1953, John Wyndham [pseudonym; John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris], “Phase One”, in The Kraken Wakes, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, published 1966, page 12
  2. (Roman, usually) The Roman god of war.
    • Near-synonym: Ares (Greek counterpart)
    • Mars was the lover of Venus, and together they had a daughter called Harmonia.
    Synonyms:
    Ares
  3. (countable, poetic, usually, plural Marses) War, personified.
    • In the first half of the twentieth century, Mars devastated Europe.
    • Mars rode upon the storm of horror and drank his fill of pain and blood. When the Serbian Army retreated before the foe, four times its own strength, it went backward facing the enemy and fighting every step of the way.1918, Ruth Stanley Farnam, A Nation at Bay: What an American Woman Saw and Did in Suffering Serbia, page 57

Noun (1) capitalized: Mars

Mars (uncountable)

  1. (rare) Gules (red), in the postmedieval practice of blazoning the tinctures of certain sovereigns' (especially British monarchs') coats as planets.
    • 4. Luna, a Mantle of Estate, Mars doubled Ermine, ouched Sol, garnished with Strings fastned thereunto fretways dependent, and tasselled of the same. [...] These Arms do belong to the Town of Beckbock in Wales. 5. Jupiter, a Mace of Majestry in Bend Sol. [...] 12. Venus, a Staff in Pale Sol, and...1693, Richard Blome, The Art of Heraldry, in two parts ... second edition ..., pages 76-77
    • George [...] Ist. Mars, three Lions passant guardant in Pale Sol, for the Arms of England, Impal'd with Scotland, i.e. Sol, a Lion rampant within a double Tressure counterflory Mars. 2d. Jupiter, three Fleurs de Lis Sol, for the Arms of France. 3d. Jupiter, an Irish Harp Sol, stringed Luna, for...1718, Samuel Kent, The Grammar of Heraldry … Second Edition
  2. (obsolete) Iron.
    • The association of the heavenly bodies with known metals and also with human organs and destinies goes back to ancient Chaldea, the land of astrologers. In Chaucer’s words: ‘The seven bodies eek, lo hear anon. Sol gold is, and Luna silver we declare; Mars yron, Mercurie is quyksilver; Saturnian...2013, John Read, From Alchemy to Chemistry

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Mars

Mars (plural Marses)

  1. A surname.
    • At a luncheon given yesterday at the Park Lane by Andrew H. Mars of Brooklyn for the Misses Marjorie Heather and Miriam Snyder, announcement was made of the engagement of his daughter, Miss Gladys L. Mars, to H. Grell Powers of this city.1929 November 21, “Miss Mars to Wed H. Grell Powers: Her Troth to New Yorker Is Announced by Her Father at a Luncheon at Park Lane. […]”, in The New York Times, volume LXXIX, number 26,234, New York...
    • Florence Mars, a diminutive woman barely five feet tall, seemed an unlikely candidate for the defiant role she assumed. She was born on Jan. 1, 1923, to Adam Longino Mars, a lawyer, and Emily Geneva Johnson Mars, known as Neva.2006 April 29, Nadine Brozan, “Florence L[atimer] Mars, 83, Who Was Spurned for Rights Work, Dies”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
  2. A brand of chocolate bar with caramel and nougat filling.
    • Easily eight foot tall, each was big, brown and glutinous - like giant Mars Bars squeezed and welded into nightmarish sculptures.1985, Michael Collier, Longest Day, page 206
    • Meg eyed the five cubicles, each with its curtain drawn. “Which one is he in?” ¶ “Three. Once I’d treated him to a Mars and a bottle of Fanta, he seemed happy enough to wait.”2015, Cari Hunter, No Good Reason, Valley Falls, N.Y.: Bold Strokes Books, →ISBN, page 232

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Mars

Mars

  1. A village in Semenivka urban hromada, Novhorod-Siverskyi Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Noun (2) capitalized: Mars

Mars

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Mas.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: MARS

MARS

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Military Auxiliary Radio System.
  2. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.

Noun (3) capitalized: MARS

MARS (plural MARSes)

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of multicast address resolution server.

Synonyms of mars

Forms of mars

Proper noun
pluralMarses
plural (rare)Marses
Noun
pluralMARSes

Origin of mars

From Middle English Mars, from Latin Mārs (“god of war”), from Old Latin Māvors.

Possibly a variant of Marrs, itself from Marr with post-medieval excrescent -s. The Mars bar was named after Franklin Clarence Mars, who founded the company that produces these chocolate bars.

Borrowed from Ukrainian Марс (Mars).

Words formed from mars

Phrases with mars

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with mars

Questions about mars

What does mars mean?
Mars means the fourth planet in the solar system. Symbol: ♂.
What is mars the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Mars is the third-person singular simple present indicative of mar.
What part of speech is mars?
Mars can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce mars?
Mars is pronounced /ˈmɑɹz/ (US).

Words near mars in the dictionary

  1. marrying the gunner's daughter
  2. marrying the ketchup
  3. marrying the ketchups
  4. marrying up
  5. marryings
  6. mars
  7. Mars Bar parties
  8. Mars Bar party
  9. Mars brown
  10. Mars Coordinated Time
  11. Mars effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mars (page history and authors); Mars (page history and authors); MARS (page history and authors); mar (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-mars.ogg.

Cite this entry: “mars.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mars. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.