Mash
Pronunciation
- enPR: măsh, IPA: /mæʃ/
- Rhymes: -æʃ
Origin 1
See mesh
Origin 2
From Middle English mash, mash-, from Old English mÇ£sc-, mÄsc-, mÄx-, from Proto-Germanic *maiskaz, *maiskÅ ("mixture, mash"), from Proto-Indo-European *meiǵ-, *meiḱ- ("to mix"). Akin to German Meisch, Maische ("mash"), (compare meischen, maischen ("to mash, wash")), Swedish mäsk ("mash"), and to Old English miscian ("to mix"). See mix.
Noun
mash
(countable and uncountable; plural mashs)- (uncountable) A mass of mixed ingredients reduced to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure; a mass of anything in a soft pulpy state.
- In brewing, ground or bruised malt, or meal of rye, wheat, corn, or other grain (or a mixture of malt and meal) steeped and stirred in hot water for making the wort.
- Mashed potatoes.
- A mixture of meal or bran and water fed to animals.
- (obsolete): A mess; trouble.
Verb
- (transitive) To convert into a mash; to reduce to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure; to bruise; to crush; as, to mash apples in a mill, or potatoes with a pestle. Specifically (Brewing), to convert, as malt, or malt and meal, into the mash which makes wort.
- (transitive) To press down hard (on).to mash on a bicycle pedal
- (transitive, southern US, informal) to press.
- (transitive, UK) To prepare a cup of tea (in a teapot), alternative to brew; used mainly in Northern England
- 1913, D. H. Lawrence, ,He took the kettle off the fire and mashed the tea.
Derived terms
Origin 3
Mash Note at World Wide Words
The City in Slang, by Irving L. Allen, p. 195
The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, as cited at The Grammarphobia Blog: Mash notes, March 16, 2007
mash ("to press, to soften"), or more likely from Romani
Charles Godfrey Leland in The Gypsies, p. 109, footnote 108; and preface to his poem “The Masherâ€, where he credits the etymology to Marshall Palmer, a Broadway producer.
masha ("a fascinator, an enticer"), mashdva ("fascination, enticement"). Originally used in theater,
Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
and recorded in US in 1870s. Either originally used as mash, or a backformation from masher, from masha. Leland writes of the etymology:
Preface to poem “The Masherâ€, in his Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land, p. 243 (full text)
It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher†or “mash†means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash†as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known impresario Marshall Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular.