Other forms: masts
A mast is the tall pole that carries the sails. Climb the mast, the mast snapped, a wooden mast.
It is held up by the rigging rather than by its own strength — shrouds to the sides and stays fore and aft — and a mast without them folds at once. Half-mast, for mourning, means partway down and leaves room for the invisible flag of death above.
1nounmastThe tall pole that carries the sails.
“The sailors climbed the mast to fix the torn sail.”
mast is a pole.
Old English maest names the pole, from a Germanic root going back to Proto-Indo-European.
Proto-Indo-European
*mazdos — pole, mast
Proto-Germanic
*mastaz — mast, sail-pole
Proto-West Germanic
*mast
Old English
mæst — mast
Middle English
mast
English, today
mast
From Middle English mast, from Old English mæst (“mast”), from Proto-West Germanic mast, from Proto-Germanic mastaz (“mast, sail-pole”), from Proto-Indo-European mazdos (“pole, mast”). Cognate with Dutch mast, German Mast, and via Indo-European with Latin mālus, Russian мост (“bridge”), Irish adhmad.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA