Where does “masterpiece” come from?
Masterpiece derives from English master, from French masse, from Latin massa meaning "lump" or "bulk," combined with the agent suffix -arius and the adjective magnus meaning "great."
masterpiece (English): A piece of work that has been given much critical...
Definitions
- A piece of work that has been given much critical...
Ancestry of “masterpiece”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | Master | Prepended to a boy's name or surname as a form... |
| 2 | English | Mast | — |
| 3 | French | masse | a paste, a dough; large amount or quantity of... |
| 4 | Old French | mace | mace |
| 5 | Vulgar Latin | mattia | — |
| 6 | Latin | mateola | The meaning of this term is uncertain.... |
| 7 | Latin | -ulus | Used to form a diminutive of a noun, indicating... |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | -olos | — |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | -elos | — |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -e-lós | — |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -lós | Forms agent nouns from verbal roots |