Mastering

How to spell mastering

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mastering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mastering mean?

1. verbIn the process of gaining thorough skill in or control over something.
2. nounThe final stage of audio production in which a recording is balanced and prepared for release.

Mastering in a sentence

• verb

  Mastering a second language took her several years of daily practice.

• noun

  The studio charges a separate fee for mastering each finished track.

• verb

  He is slowly mastering the spreadsheet formulas his job requires.

• noun

  Careful mastering gave the album a consistent volume across every song.

Where does mastering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'master', which traces back to the Latin magister, meaning a 'chief', 'director', or 'teacher', someone with authority over others. The root is connected to magis, meaning 'more' or 'greater', so a magister was literally the 'greater one' in a group. The word entered Old English as maegester and was reinforced after the Norman Conquest by the Old French maistre, both meaning a person in charge. Over the centuries the verb sense grew from 'to rule or dominate' into 'to gain thorough command of a skill', which is the meaning most people reach for today. The -ing form simply turns that verb into an ongoing action or a thing-noun, and because the base word ends in a single 'r' after a stressed short vowel that is not doubled, the spelling stays as a tidy 'mastering' rather than 'masterring'.

How the word is built

• master (one who has control or skill, from Latin magister 'chief, teacher')
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)