mastery

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Etymology

From Old French maistrie.

Noun

mastery (usually uncountable; plural masteries)

1. 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. Sir W. Raleigh.

2. Superiority in war or competition; victory; triumph; preeminence.

   The voice of them that shout for mastery. Exodus. xxxii. 18.

   Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. 1 Corinthians. ix. 25.

   O, but to have gulled him Had been a mastery. B. Jonson.

3. (obsolete) Contest for superiority. Holland.
4. (obsolete) A masterly operation; a feat.

   I will do a maistrie ere I go. Chaucer.

5. (obsolete) Specifically, the philosopher's stone.
6. The act or process of mastering; the state of having mastered.

   He could attain to a mastery in all languages. Tillotson.

   The learning and mastery of a tongue, being unpleasant in itself, should not be cumbered with other difficulties. Locke.

Translations

• Czech: ovládnutí (cs) n.
• Dutch: meesterschap (nl) n.
• Finnish: määräysvalta (1)
• German: Meisterschaft (de) f.
• Greek: αυθεντία (afthentia) f., υπεροχή (uperohḗ) f.
• Spanish: maestría (es) f.
• Volapük: reig