mast

UK/mɑːst//mæst/

mast noun: a tall, slim post or tower, usually tapering upward, used to support, for example, sails or observation platforms on a ship, the main rotor of a helicopter, flags, floodlights, meteorological instruments, or communications equipment, such as an aerial, usually supported by guy-wires (except in the case of a helicopter).

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

mast (plural masts)

A tall, slim post or tower, usually tapering upward, used to support, for example, sails or observation platforms on a ship, the main rotor of a helicopter, flags, floodlights, meteorological instruments, or communications equipment, such as an aerial, usually supported by guy-wires (except in the case of a helicopter).
A non-judicial punishment ("NJP"); a disciplinary hearing under which a commanding officer studies and disposes of cases involving those under his command.

Verb (1)

mast (third-person singular simple present masts, present participle masting, simple past and past participle masted)

To supply and fit a mast to (a ship).

Noun (2)

mast (countable and uncountable, plural masts)

The fruit of forest-trees (beech, oak, chestnut, pecan, etc.), especially if having fallen from the tree, used as fodder for pigs and other animals.
- She ſhut them ſtraight in ſties; and gaue them meate / Oke-maſt, and beech, and Cornell fruite, they eate, […]1614–1615, Homer, “The Tenth Booke of Homers Odysses”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615...
- The Winter comes, and then the falling Maſt, / For greedy Swine, provides a full repaſt.1697, Virgil, “The Second Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 93, lines...

Verb (2)

mast (third-person singular simple present masts, present participle masting, simple past and past participle masted)

To feed on forest seed or fruit.
To produce a very large quantity of fruit or seed in certain years but not others.
- Any individual tree which masted in a generally non-mast year would be subjected to the exclusive attention of the seed predators and so would be selected against.1985, Michael Fenner, Seed ecology, page 33
- However, if this were true, all or most masting species (e.g., Fagus and Quercus) in a forest would have to mast in synchrony to be effective against generalist herbivores.2004, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Christian Körner, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Forest Diversity and Function: Temperate and Boreal Systems, page 28

Noun (3)

mast (uncountable)

(slang) The anabolic steroid drostanolone propionate, also known as Masteron

Noun (4)

mast (plural masts)

(obsolete) A type of heavy cue, with the broad end of which one strikes the ball.
- Godfrey thus conquered, pretended to lose his temper, curs'd his own ill luck, swore that the table had a cast, and that the balls did not run true, changed his mast, and with great warmth challenged his enemy to double his sum.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

Noun (5) capitalized: MAST

MAST (plural MASTs)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of military antishock trousers; inflatable trousers that apply pressure to the inferior half of a patient's body to decrease blood loss and prevent the onset of shock, similar to a tourniquet.

Synonyms:

PASG

Proper noun capitalized: Mast

Mast

A surname.

mast meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

mast in Hindi

support of a sail: मस्तूल mastūl, कूपदंड kūpdaṇḍ

mast in Tamil

மாஸ்ட்

mast in Urdu

support of a sail: مَسْتُول mastūl

mast in Bengali

support of a sail: মাস্তুল mastul

More languagesFewer languages

mast in Telugu: మాస్ట్, మాస్ట్ చెయ్యడానికి
mast in Malayalam: മാസ്റ്റ്
mast in Kannada: ಮಾಸ್ಟ್, ಮಾಸ್ತ್
mast in Punjabi: ਮਾਸਟ, ਮਾਸਟ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
mast in Odia: ମାସ୍ତୁଲ, ମାଷ୍ଟ୍, ମାସ୍ତ୍
mast in Sanskrit: कूपक kūpaka
mast in Tagalog: puliagan
mast in Arabic: صَارٍ ṣārin
mast in Malay: tiang
mast in Indonesian: tiang
mast in Thai: เสากระโดง sǎo-grà-doong, กระโดง grà-doong, เสาเรือ sǎo-rʉʉa, เสา sǎo
mast in Vietnamese: cột buồm, cột
mast in Myanmar: တိုင် tuing, ရွက်တိုင် rwaktuing

Examples of mast in a sentence

[T]hey feed and grovel like Swine under an Oak, filling themſelves with the Maſt, but never ſo much as looking up, either to the Bows that bore, or the Hands that ſhook it down.1715, Robert South, “A Sermon on Proverbs i. 32.”, in Twelve Sermons Preached at Several Times, and upon Several Occasions, volume IV...
He […] would begin to pick up the seed-cases or mast, squeeze each one with his fingers to see if it were fertile, and drop it if it were not.1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 162:
The cultivated harvest in the fields was matched by the woodland ‘mast’ of beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, and other fruits of the forest.1999, Robert Lacey, Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: What life was like at the turn of The First Millennium, London: Abacus, published 2000...

All 40 example sentences with mast

Synonyms of mast

PASG

Forms of mast

Noun
plural	masts
plural	MASTs
Verb
third-person singular present	masts
present participle	masting
past participle	masted
past	masted

Plural of mast: masts

Origin of mast

From Middle English mast, from Old English mæst (“mast”), from Proto-West Germanic *mast, from Proto-Germanic *mastaz (“mast, sail-pole”), from Proto-Indo-European *mazdos (“pole, mast”). Cognate with Dutch mast, German Mast, and via Indo-European with Latin mālus, Russian мост (most, “bridge”), Irish adhmad.

From Old English mæst (“fallen nuts, food for swine”) and mæstan (“to fatten”), from West Germanic; probably related to meat.

Clipping of Masteron.

Words formed from mast

Phrases with mast

5 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with mast

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mast

What does mast mean?: Mast means a tall, slim post or tower, usually tapering upward, used to support, for example, sails or observation platforms on a ship, the main rotor of a helicopter, flags, floodlights, meteorological instruments, or communications equipment, such as an aerial, usually supported by guy-wires (except in the case of a helicopter).
What is mast in Hindi?: Mast in Hindi is मस्तूल (mastūl), कूपदंड (kūpdaṇḍ). See Mast meaning in Hindi.
How do you use mast in a sentence?: [T]hey feed and grovel like Swine under an Oak, filling themſelves with the Maſt, but never ſo much as looking up, either to the Bows that bore, or the Hands that ſhook it down.
What part of speech is mast?: Mast can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mast?: Mast is pronounced /mɑːst/ (UK).
What is the plural of mast?: The plural of mast is masts.

Words near mast in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: mast (page history and authors); MAST (page history and authors); Mast (page history and authors); mast (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mast (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mast (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mast (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mast (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mast (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

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

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