master
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "master", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "master" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "master" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
master is aEnglishnoun. It means: Someone who has control over something or someone. Pronounced /ˈmɑːs.tə/. It ranks #1,250 in English word frequency. Often confused with mate and meter.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | master |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɑːs.tə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,250 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for master is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmɑːs.tə/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,250 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 21 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for master, with forms such as "amster", "masetr", and "masster". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "mate", "meter", "mates", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English maister, mayster, meister (noun) and maistren (verb), from Old English mǣster, mæġster, mæġester, mæġister, magister (“master”), from Latin magister (“chief, teacher, leader”), from Old Latin magester, from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s (a… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is master, spelled M-A-S-T-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Someone who has control over something or someone.
- 2The owner of an animal or slave.
- 3The captain of a merchant ship; a master mariner.
- 4A male head of household.
- 5Someone who employs others.
- 6An expert at something.
- 7A tradesman who is qualified to teach apprentices.
- 8A male schoolteacher.
- 9A skilled artist.
- 10A man or a boy; mister. See Master.
- 11A master's degree; a type of postgraduate degree, usually undertaken after a bachelor degree.
- 12A person holding such a degree.
- 13The original of a document or of a recording.
- 14The copyright in a sound recording.
- 15The primary wide shot of a scene, into which the closeups will be edited later.
- 16A parajudicial officer (such as a referee, an auditor, an examiner, or an assessor) specially appointed to help a court with its proceedings.
- 17A device that is controlling other devices or is an authoritative source.
- 18A person holding an office of authority, especially the presiding officer.
- 19A person holding a similar office in other civic societies.
- 20Ellipsis of master key.
- 21A male dominant.
Etymology
From Middle English maister, mayster, meister (noun) and maistren (verb), from Old English mǣster, mæġster, mæġester, mæġister, magister (“master”), from Latin magister (“chief, teacher, leader”), from Old Latin magester, from Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s (as in magnus (“great”), also cognate of English much and mickle) + -ester/-ister (compare minister (“servant”)). Reinforced by Old French maistre, mestre (noun) and maistriier, maister (verb) from the same Latin source. Compare also Saterland Frisian Mäster (“master”), West Frisian master (“master”), Dutch meester (“master”), German Meister (“master”). Doublet of maestro, magister, and meister.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amster,masetr,masster,masterr,mastre,mastter,matser,mmaster,msater
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for master
Misspelling Variants of "master"
Frequency rank: #1,250 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: