Mass
Etymology
From Latin "massa" (a lump, a kneaded dough), borrowed from Greek "maza" (barley cake). The sense traveled from a shapeless blob of material to the physicist’s precise quantity of matter.
The religious Mass is a wholly separate word — from Latin "missa," rooted in the words that dismissed the congregation: "Ite, missa est" ("Go, it is sent forth").
noun · /MASS/
The amount of matter in an object — a measure of how much stuff it contains and how strongly it resists being pushed.
What it names
The property of a thing that stays the same wherever you take it, separating what an object is from how heavy it happens to feel here.
Example
The bag of flour has the same mass on Earth and in orbit, even though it weighs nothing while floating.
Related idea
Mass is how much matter you have; weight is the gravitational force on that matter. Weight changes on the Moon; mass does not — which is why astronauts are weightless but never massless.
noun · /MASS/
The central act of worship in the Catholic and some other Christian churches, commemorating the Last Supper through the Eucharist.
What it names
It marks an entirely separate lineage of the word from the physics term — a ritual, not a quantity — and anchors phrases like 'midnight Mass' and 'requiem Mass.'
Example
They attend Mass every Sunday morning at the cathedral.
Related idea
A single rite rather than the whole tradition of worship that frames it — the Mass is one particular liturgy, centered on the sacrament of communion.
noun · /MASS/
A large connected body of matter with no definite shape, or a large number of things or people gathered together.
What it names
It captures sheer bulk or quantity rather than a precise measurement — and, as ‘the masses,’ the great body of ordinary people.
Example
A mass of protesters filled the square as a dark mass of clouds gathered overhead.
Related idea
Density is how much mass (the physics measure) is packed into a volume; this everyday ‘mass’ drops measurement entirely and just means a big, shapeless heap or crowd.