Word.ws English Dictionary

past master

past master noun: one who has an extremely high level of ability or knowledge within an area of achievement or expertise.

Noun

past master (plural past masters)

  1. One who has an extremely high level of ability or knowledge within an area of achievement or expertise.
    • It required a deft hand and deep knowledge of the barbaric mind effectually to handle such diverse weapons; but he was a past-master in the art, knowing when to conciliate and when to threaten with Jove-like wrath.1900 April 7, Jack London, “The Son of the Wolf”, in The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 24
    • Hervey responded with such volubility that anyone could see he was a pastmaster in Castilian swearing.1907, Fergus Hume, chapter 27, in The Green Mummy
  2. Someone who has previously been a master at a given lodge.

past master meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

past master in Malayalam

master, expert, wizard
സമർത്ഥൻ, ചതുരൻ, കല്യൻ, ഉത്ഭടൻ, ഉദ്ഭടൻ, പാരംഗതൻ

past master in Kannada

ಪ್ರವೀಣ, ನಿಪುಣ, ಪಾರಂಗತ

Examples of past master in a sentence

  • Morison was a past master in the art of insidious boasting.1915 December 4 – 1916 January 8, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter XVII, in The Son of Tarzan, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg &...
  • Winterbottom is a past master at lending the traditional story-telling format to real stories of the modern world at war.2007 May 21, Richard Corliss, Mary Corliss, “Cannes Journal: Mighty Hearts and Dark Deeds”, in Time:

Synonyms of past master

14 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of past master

Forms of past master

pluralpast masters
alternative formpast-master
alternative formpastmaster
alternative form (archaic)passed master

Questions about past master

What does past master mean?
Past master means one who has an extremely high level of ability or knowledge within an area of achievement or expertise.
What is past master in Malayalam?
Past master in Malayalam is സമർത്ഥൻ, ചതുരൻ, കല്യൻ. See Past master meaning in Malayalam.
How do you use past master in a sentence?
Morison was a past master in the art of insidious boasting.
What part of speech is past master?
Past master is a noun.
What is the plural of past master?
The plural of past master is past masters.

Words near past master in the dictionary

  1. past imperfect tense
  2. past it
  3. past iterative
  4. past life
  5. past lives
  6. past master
  7. past masters
  8. past mistress
  9. past mistresses
  10. past one's prime
  11. past paper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: past master (page history and authors); past master (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); past master (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: “past master.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past_master. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.