Mascara

How to spell mascara

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mascara

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mascara mean?

1. nounA cosmetic applied to the eyelashes to darken, thicken, or lengthen them.

Mascara in a sentence

• She packed a tube of waterproof mascara for the beach holiday.

• The humid air made her mascara smudge under her eyes.

Where does mascara come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

Mascara entered English in the late 1800s as the name for a dark cosmetic brushed onto the eyelashes. It traces back to the Spanish word mascara and the Italian maschera, both meaning 'mask', the idea being that the eyes are dressed up or covered as if with a small disguise. The Romance forms themselves are usually linked to a much older root, the Arabic maskhara, which meant 'a buffoon' or 'something laughable', tied to the verb sakhira, 'to mock'; the sense drifted from clowning and disguise toward the painted mask of theatre and cosmetics. English took the modern beauty-product meaning largely through trade and the cosmetics industry rather than directly from the theatre. The spelling trap is that single-c, single-r run of vowels in the middle: it is mas-CA-ra, not 'mascarra' or 'mascera', and the unstressed final 'a' is easy to mishear as an 'er'.

How the word is built

• mascara (whole word, from Romance languages meaning 'mask' or 'spot'); no separable English prefix or suffix