Word.ws English Dictionary

massa

massa is the pronunciation spelling of master.

Meaning of master

Noun

master (plural masters)

  1. Someone who has control over something or someone.
    • We are masters of the sea.1881, Benjamin Jowett, Thucydides
  2. The owner of an animal or slave.
  3. The captain of a merchant ship; a master mariner.
    • Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three—1896, Rudyard Kipling, The Mary Gloster
    Synonyms:
    skipper, captain
  4. (dated) A male head of household.
  5. Someone who employs others.
    • No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or otherwise his man would be there with a message to say that his master would shortly join me if I would kindly wait.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 46
  6. An expert at something.
    • Mark Twain was a master of fiction.

See all 42 meanings of master

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Massa

Massa (countable and uncountable, plural Massas)

  1. (uncountable) A town in Tuscany, Italy.
  2. (countable) A surname.

Noun (1) capitalized: Massa

Massa pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A Chadic ethnic group in Cameroon and Chad.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Massa

Massa

  1. A Chadic language spoken by the Massa people.

Noun (2) capitalized: Massa

Massa (plural Massas)

  1. (chiefly African-American Vernacular or Caribbean) Alternative letter-case form of massa, master, particularly as a form of address.
    • Officer.—"What is the numerical strength of the enemy in our front?"
      Intelligent Contraband.—"Eh, Massa?"
      O.—"How many men has the Confederate General Blank?"
      I. C.—"'Bout forty-leben thousan', Massa."
      O.—"Don't you mean about four thousand?"
      I. C.—"Yes, Massa; dar's 'bout four hundred ob 'em."1885 March 18, "W.", "A War Article", Puck, Vol. XVII, No. 419, p. 45
    • "I wanted to speak to you about Miss Merze, Rhoda."
      "Yes, Massa Fred."1889, Marah Ellis Ryan, Merze..., page 110

Forms of massa

Noun
pluralmassas
alternative formMassa
alternative formMasa
pluralMassas
Proper noun
pluralMassas

Origin of massa

Both borrowed from Italian Massa, from Latin Māssa, from massa (“mass, bulk”). Compare Massey.

Phrases with massa

Questions about massa

What does massa mean?
Massa means a town in Tuscany, Italy.
What is massa the pronunciation spelling of?
Massa is the pronunciation spelling of master.
What part of speech is massa?
Massa can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near massa in the dictionary

  1. mass-report
  2. mass-reported
  3. mass-reporting
  4. mass-reports
  5. Mass.
  6. massa
  7. Massa Carrara
  8. Massac County
  9. massacer
  10. massacers
  11. Massachusett

Source and license

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