mash

• enPR: măsh, IPA^(key): /mæʃ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æʃ

From Middle English mash, from Old English mǣsc-, māsc-, māx-, from Proto-Germanic *maiskaz, *maiskō (“mixture, mash”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyǵ-, *meyḱ- (“to mix”). Akin to German Meisch, Maische (“mash”), (compare meischen, maischen (“to mash, wash”)), Swedish mäsk (“mash”), and to Old English miscian (“to mix”). See mix.

The verb comes from Middle English meshen, meissen, mæschen (“to beat into a mash”).

mash (countable and uncountable, plural mashes)

1. (uncountable) A mass of mixed ingredients reduced to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure; a mass of anything in a soft pulpy state.
2. (brewing) Ground or bruised malt, or meal of rye, wheat, corn, or other grain (or a mixture of malt and meal) steeped and stirred in hot water for making the wort.
3. Mashed potatoes.
4. A mixture of meal or bran and water fed to animals.
5. (obsolete) A mess; trouble.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Beaumont and Fletcher to this entry?)

• bangers and mash
• instant mash
• mash tun
• mash vat

mash (third-person singular simple present mashes, present participle mashing, simple past and past participle mashed)

1. (transitive) To convert into a mash; to reduce to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure

   We had fun mashing apples in a mill.

   The potatoes need to be mashed.

2. (transitive) In brewing, to convert (for example malt, or malt and meal) into the mash which makes wort.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To press down hard (on).

   to mash on a bicycle pedal

4. (transitive, Southern US, informal) To press. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
5. (transitive, Britain, chiefly Northern England) To prepare a cup of tea in a teapot; to brew (tea).
   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, chapter 10

     He took the kettle off the fire and mashed the tea.

6. (intransitive, archaic) To act violently.

• mashing
• mashed potato, mashed potatoes
• mashup

See mesh.

mash (plural mashes)

1. (obsolete) A mesh.

Either[1][2] by analogy with[3] mash (“to press, to soften”), or more likely from Romani[4] masha (“a fascinator, an enticer”), mashdva (“fascination, enticement”). Originally used in theater,[5] and recorded in US in 1870s. Either originally used as mash, or a backformation from masher, from masha. Leland writes of the etymology:[6]

It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher” or “mash” means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash” as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known impresario [Albert Marshall] Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular.

mash (third-person singular simple present mashes, present participle mashing, simple past and past participle mashed)

1. to flirt, to make eyes, to make romantic advances

mash (plural mashes)

1. (obsolete) an infatuation, a crush, a fancy
2. (obsolete) a dandy, a masher
3. (obsolete) the object of one’s affections (either sex)

• mash note
• masher

• AMHS, HMAS, HSAM, MHAs, MSHA, Mahs, SAHM, Sahm, hams, sham