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Mask   /mæsk/   Listen
noun
Mask  n.  
1.
A cover, or partial cover, for the face, used for disguise or protection; as, a dancer's mask; a fencer's mask; a ball player's mask.
2.
That which disguises; a pretext or subterfuge.
3.
A festive entertainment of dancing or other diversions, where all wear masks; a masquerade; hence, a revel; a frolic; a delusive show. "This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask."
4.
A dramatic performance, formerly in vogue, in which the actors wore masks and represented mythical or allegorical characters.
5.
(Arch.) A grotesque head or face, used to adorn keystones and other prominent parts, to spout water in fountains, and the like; called also mascaron.
6.
(Fort.)
(a)
In a permanent fortification, a redoubt which protects the caponiere.
(b)
A screen for a battery.
7.
(Zool.) The lower lip of the larva of a dragon fly, modified so as to form a prehensile organ.
8.
A person wearing a mask; a masker. "The mask that has the arm of the Indian queen."
9.
(Sporting) The head or face of a fox.
Mask house, a house for masquerades. (Obs.) Death mask, a cast of the face of a dead person.


verb
Mask  v. t.  (past & past part. masked; pres. part. masking)  
1.
To cover, as the face, by way of concealment or defense against injury; to conceal with a mask or visor. "They must all be masked and vizarded."
2.
To disguise; to cover; to hide. "Masking the business from the common eye."
3.
(Mil.)
(a)
To conceal; also, to intervene in the line of.
(b)
To cover or keep in check; as, to mask a body of troops or a fortress by a superior force, while some hostile evolution is being carried out.


Mask  v. i.  
1.
To take part as a masker in a masquerade.
2.
To wear a mask; to be disguised in any way.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Mask" Quotes from Famous Books



... in her manner, making Katy feel wholly at ease by a few well-timed compliments, which had the merit of seeming genuine, so perfect was she in the art of deception, practicing it with so much skill that few saw through the mask, and knew ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... mask. "In the meantime, you shall have my opinion," he said. "Your marriage is a crime—and I mean ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... special creation owes its existence very largely to the supposed necessity of making science accord with the Hebrew cosmogony"; and that the hypothesis of special creation is, in my judgment, a "mere specious mask for our ignorance." Not content with ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... dancing; and music and dancing without the highest impersonations of which they are the fit accompaniment, and both without religion and solemnity. Religious institution has indeed been usually banished from the stage. Our system of divesting the actor's face of a mask, on which the many expressions appropriate to his dramatic character might be moulded into one permanent and unchanging expression, is favourable only to a partial and inharmonious effect; it is fit for nothing but a monologue, where all the attention may be directed to some great ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life: where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous and capable administrator; then relapsing into the habit or assuming the mask of vice, he was adopted as Elegantiae Arbiter (the authority on taste) into the small circle of Nero's intimate companions. No luxury was charming or refined till Petronius had given it his approval, and the jealousy of Tigellinus was roused against ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce


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