massé

American

[ma-sey, mas-ee] / mæˈseɪ, ˈmæs i /

noun

Billiards.

a stroke made by hitting the cue ball with the cue held almost or quite perpendicular to the table.

massé British

/ ˈmæsɪ /

noun

billiards a stroke made by hitting the cue ball off centre with the cue held nearly vertically, esp so as to make the ball move in a curve around another ball before hitting the object ball

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of massé

1870–75; < French: literally, hammered, i.e., struck from above, straight down, equivalent to masse sledge hammer ( Old French mace; mace ¹ ) + -é -ee

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

People were not, however, coming out en masse to celebrate, according to social media.

From Barron's

The Labour MP said it was "critical that we really consider what the impacts of data centres will be before we charge into approving them en masse".

From BBC

To justify where some of the hard-hit stocks are trading, you would need to believe that software companies will go bankrupt en masse, that sponsors won’t defend them, and that lenders will recover pennies on senior secured paper.

From Barron's

Fortunately, says Ng, scientists studying these birds noticed that hatch rates were flatlining, so even though bald eagles didn’t drop out of the sky en masse, scientists were able to identify the problem before it was too late.

From Slate

Foot-and-mouth vaccines need to be imported as South Africa no longer has the capacity to produce them en masse.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023