Master of the Universen.

1690 J. Dryden Amphitryon i. ii. 10 I'm all on fire; and wou'd not loose this Night, To be the Master of the Universe.

1782 F. Burney Cecilia IV. viii. i. 160 Never..can I quit you without knowing it! I would not linger till to-morrow in this suspence to be master of the universe!

1854 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 75 506/1 Ambition can be controlled, and, fortunately, the Czar is not yet master of the universe. Nay, he is not yet master of Europe.

1899 Mod. Lang. Notes 14 198/2 In The Tempest man is master of the universe.

1936 M. Lerner in Nation 3 Oct. 396 The cannons of its [sc. liberalism's] ethics are those of individual conscience; in the realm of science it moves to the conviction that man may by rational inquiry become master of the universe.

1961 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 22 466 According to Hegel, there lies in war an ethical (sittlich) element inasmuch as it exposes the accidental, the arbitrary, and finite in life. It prevents the particular interest from becoming the master of the universe.

2000 Chron. Higher Educ. 7 July a16/1 Q. You argue that the fear of losing control over technology connects us to magical, shamanistic, or fetishistic conceptions of reality. How? A. Because that challenges the notion of the human subject as the master of the universe.

1765 C. Smart tr. Psalms David lxviii. 58 Arouse—and let thy foes disperse Thou master of the universe.

1845 Southern Q. Rev. Oct. 432 Here the architecture of the Master of the universe, is gorgeously displayed.

1917 A. Cahan Rise of David Levinsky ii. ii. 39 Often while saying my prayers I would fall into a veritable delirium of religious infatuation... ‘O Master of the World! Master of the Universe! I love you so!’

1967 C. Potok Chosen ii. vii. 133 It means that if we do as the Master of the Universe wishes, then He will do as we wish.

1972 C. Potok My Name is Asher Lev (1974) ii. 63 The Rebbe asked me to ask all our dear students to plead with the Master of the Universe to spare the lives of the Jewish doctors.

2000 Judaism (Amer. Jewish Congress) Winter 81 For Buber, this meant he should live with a holy nearness to the ongoing mystery of creation, where the Master of the Universe is always acting upon one.

1982 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 13 July 231/2 Masters of the Universe for toy figure.

1982 Washington Post 19 Nov. (Weekend section) 69 Perched in high stacks and looking ever-ready to lunge were the Masters of the Universe, He-Man (‘Most Powerful’) and Skeletor (‘Lord of Destruction’).

1984 People Weekly 2 July 106/1 If you're looking to strike up a conversation with a boy over the age of 5 these days, you'd better be thoroughly versed in the nuances of the magic kingdom of Eternia, whose denizens are known throughout toyland as Masters of the Universe.

1998 D. Hecht Skull Session i. x. 72 She wore a heavily insulated, hooded wetsuit, glistening black and neon blue with purple knee pads, that made her look like a female Master of the Universe.

2000 Wall St. Jrnl. 8 Mar. b1 The boys' market is notoriously fickle, and even the most successful superheros—He Man and the Masters of the Universe in the early 1980s..—had a life of about five years before dying out.

1987 T. Wolfe Bonfire of Vanities i. 12 He had picked up the telephone and taken an order for zero-coupon bonds that had brought him a $50,000 commission, just like that... On Wall Street he and a few others..had become precisely that. Masters of the Universe. There was..no limit whatsoever!

1990 U.S. News & World Rep. 12 Feb. 19 Two masters of the universe step down... The October, 1987, crash was a defining moment for two of Wall Street's biggest names.

1998 N.Y. Mag. 20 July 7/1 The man making deals with Masters of the Universe called his ‘twentysomething major investors’ into his office to tell them that his big deal had fallen through.

2000 Barron's 13 Mar. 5/1 Master of the Universe. That worshipful name once belonged to the investment banker. These days it more properly belongs to the venture capitalist.