Etymology: Cognate with Middle Low German meisch , mēsch mash, wort (in compounds also meische- , mēsche- ), Middle High German meisch mash (in brewing), must (in winemaking) (German Maische ), Icelandic †meiskur brew, mixture (16th cent.), Norwegian mask mash, Swedish mäsk mash, wort, draff, Danish mask draff, mæsk mash; probably also cognate with Old Russian mězga and mjazga sap, sapwood (Russian mezga sapwood, mash), Polish miazga sapwood, Bulgarian măzga sap. Further etymology uncertain (connections with the bases either of mix n.¹ or of mix v. have been suggested).The Old English forms in -x show metathesis of the consonant cluster -sc ; the form mex- in quot. lOE for mash-shovel n. at Compounds 1 (in a text with occasional scribal e for æ ) and later spellings in -e- suggest that alongside Old English māsc there existed an i-mutated variant mǣsc ; compare Danish mæsk beside mask , and also note on modern regional forms s.v. mash v.¹ Although the word is found in compounds from early times (compare mash wort n. at Compounds 2, mash-shovel n. at Compounds 1, mash-fat n.), the simplex is rare: apart from two occurrences in the same source in late Old English (written second half of 12th cent.; see quots.), there is no evidence of it before the 16th cent.; it may be that between these dates the simplex enjoyed a continuity of use which is not reflected in the written record; otherwise, its reappearance in 16th-cent. texts is perhaps the result of back-formation from the compounds. (Some of the compound uses could perhaps be explained alternatively as < mash v.¹)

Etymology: Origin uncertain. Perhaps < French masse sledgehammer (1508 in Middle French in this sense; compare Anglo-Norman mace , mache in sense ‘war-hammer’: see mace n.²), perhaps remodelled after mash v.¹; or perhaps simply < mash v.¹ Perhaps compare Older Scots musch, apparently in the same sense (see Dict. Older Sc. Tongue at that entry).Compare Middle Dutch matse (also maetse, maetche) club, war-hammer, martse sledgehammer, mace, club, probably < Middle French masse.

Etymology: < Sanskrit māṣa (also with vernacular pronunciation māṣ ) bean, (later) urd. Vernacular forms of Sanskrit māṣa are applied in South Asia also to several other pulses. Compare masha n.

Etymology: Origin uncertain; the earliest attestations of mash v.² and masher n.² are so close in date to that of the present word that their relative priority cannot be established beyond doubt. They may perhaps originate from a figurative use of either mash n.¹ or mash v.¹ (compare slightly later crush n. 2d).In form mashee in quot. 1870 at sense A. 1 after Chinese Pidgin English -ee (see makee v.). The alleged Romani forms mash , masherava ‘allure, entice’ cited by Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang (1890) appear not to exist in any Romani dialect. Barrère & Leland further assert s.v. that the verb was current in U.S. theatrical parlance from c1860 (see quot. 1890 at mash v.² 1a) and that an impresario confirmed their suggested etymology and stated that the expression had arisen among a particular theatrical family ‘of Romany stock, who spoke gypsy familiarly among themselves’: however, no further support seems to be available for any of these statements.

Etymology: < mash n.¹ Compare German meischen to tread grapes, Norwegian (Nynorsk) meiska, Norwegian (Bokmål) meske, Swedish mäska, Danish mæske to mash (in brewing). Surv. Eng. Dial. records forms with the vowel /ɛ/ from Yorkshire and Essex (in sense 7).

Etymology: Origin uncertain; see discussion s.v. mash n.⁴

Etymology: Probably a variant of smash v.¹ with regional loss of initial s-.