The life of Homer has been written by amassing all the traditions and hints the writers could meet with. Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- To accumulate; heap up; pile. [ 1913 Webster ]

An amassment of imaginary conceptions. Glanvill. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The Eastern cammass is Camassia Fraseri. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. (R. C. Ch.) The sacrifice in the sacrament of the Eucharist, or the consecration and oblation of the host. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Mus.) The portions of the Mass usually set to music, considered as a musical composition; -- namely, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, besides sometimes an Offertory and the Benedictus. [ 1913 Webster ]

Canon of the Mass. See Canon. --
High Mass, Mass with incense, music, the assistance of a deacon, subdeacon, etc. --
Low Mass, Mass which is said by the priest throughout, without music. --
Mass bell, the sanctus bell. See Sanctus. --
Mass book, the missal or Roman Catholic service book. [ 1913 Webster ]

1. A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size; as, a mass of ore, metal, sand, or water. [ 1913 Webster ]

If it were not for these principles, the bodies of the earth, planets, comets, sun, and all things in them, would grow cold and freeze, and become inactive masses. Sir I. Newton. [ 1913 Webster ]

A deep mass of continual sea is slower stirred
To rage. Savile. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Phar.) A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills; as, blue mass. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A large quantity; a sum. [ 1913 Webster ]

All the mass of gold that comes into Spain. Sir W. Raleigh. [ 1913 Webster ]

He had spent a huge mass of treasure. Sir J. Davies. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Bulk; magnitude; body; size. [ 1913 Webster ]

This army of such mass and charge. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. The principal part; the main body. [ 1913 Webster ]

Night closed upon the pursuit, and aided the mass of the fugitives in their escape. Jowett (Thucyd.). [ 1913 Webster ]

6. (Physics) The quantity of matter which a body contains, irrespective of its bulk or volume. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Mass and weight are often used, in a general way, as interchangeable terms, since the weight of a body is proportional to its mass (under the same or equal gravitative forces), and the mass is usually ascertained from the weight. Yet the two ideas, mass and weight, are quite distinct. Mass is the quantity of matter in a body; weight is the comparative force with which it tends towards the center of the earth. A mass of sugar and a mass of lead are assumed to be equal when they show an equal weight by balancing each other in the scales. [ 1913 Webster ]

Blue mass. See under Blue. --
Mass center (Geom.), the center of gravity of a triangle. --
Mass copper, native copper in a large mass. --
Mass meeting, a large or general assembly of people, usually a meeting having some relation to politics. --
The masses, the great body of the people, as contrasted with the higher classes; the populace. [ 1913 Webster ]

But mass them together and they are terrible indeed. Coleridge. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Murder. [ Obs. ] Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Syn. -- Massacre, Butchery, Carnage. Massacre denotes the promiscuous slaughter of many who can not make resistance, or much resistance. Butchery refers to cold-blooded cruelty in the killing of men as if they were brute beasts. Carnage points to slaughter as producing the heaped-up bodies of the slain. [ 1913 Webster ]

I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And raze their faction and their family. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Brhold this pattern of thy butcheries. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Such a scent I draw
Of carnage, prey innumerable! Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

If James should be pleased to massacre them all, as Maximian had massacred the Theban legion. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Massicot is sometimes used by painters, and also as a drier in the composition of ointments and plasters. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Min.) In mass; not necessarily without a crystalline structure, but having no regular form; as, a mineral occurs massive. [ 1913 Webster ]

Massive rock (Geol.), a compact crystalline rock not distinctly schistose, as granite; also, with some authors, an eruptive rock. [ 1913 Webster ]

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
And will not be uplifted. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Yawning rocks in massy fragments fly. Pope. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The theoretical possibility that there are particles which always move faster than light cannot at present be disproved and is not denied by this equation; in such a case, the relativistic mass equation asserts that such particles can never decelerate to or below the speed of light. Such hypothetical particles are referred to as
tachyons. [ PJC ]