Mastery

How to spell mastery

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce mastery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mastery mean?

1. nounComprehensive skill, command, or expert knowledge of a subject or activity.

Mastery in a sentence

• Years of daily practice gave her real mastery of the violin.

• The course is designed to build mastery of basic accounting before any advanced topics.

Where does mastery come from?

Language of origin: French

This word goes back to the Latin magister, meaning a chief, a director, or a teacher, the same root that gives us 'master', 'magistrate', and even the academic 'master's degree'. Old French reshaped magister into maistre (master) and built the abstract noun maistrie to describe the condition of being in command or holding the upper hand. English took maistrie in during the 1200s, and over time it settled into the spelling 'mastery', covering both the idea of control or victory over something and the idea of complete skill in a craft or subject. The sense of triumphant control came first; the modern emphasis on thorough expertise grew alongside it. The spelling trap is the ending: the word resolves to '-ery', not '-ary', because it is simply 'master' plus the common noun suffix '-y'.

How the word is built

• master (from Latin magister: chief, teacher)
• -y (noun suffix denoting state or quality)