Masking

How to spell masking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce masking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does masking mean?

1. nounThe act of covering, hiding, or disguising something so it is less noticeable.
2. nounIn painting and decorating, the act of protecting an area so paint does not reach it.

Masking in a sentence

• The loud fan was masking the hum of the refrigerator.

• Careful masking of the window frames gave us crisp, clean paint lines.

• Heavy perfume was masking the smell of fresh paint in the hallway.

• He spent the morning masking the skirting boards before rolling the walls.

Where does masking come from?

Language of origin: French

The base word 'mask' arrived in English in the mid 1500s, most directly from the French 'masque', which itself came from the Italian 'maschera', meaning a covering for the face used in disguise or performance. Behind these lies the medieval Latin 'masca', a word that meant something like 'spectre' or 'witch', hinting that the earliest masks were tied to spirits and concealment rather than mere costume. Some scholars also trace a thread to the Arabic 'maskharah', meaning a buffoon or object of ridicule, which may have influenced the southern European forms. The form 'masking' is the English gerund, built by adding the ordinary '-ing' suffix to the verb 'mask', and it broadened over time from literally covering a face to any act of hiding, dampening, or concealing one quality with another. Because the root keeps a single 's' and a hard 'k', the spelling is regular and rarely surprises an adult writer.

How the word is built

• mask (cover/disguise)
• -ing (verb/noun suffix)