mass [OE] There is no relation at all between Late Middle English mass ‘a large body with no definite shape’ and Old English Mass ‘the celebration of the Christian Eucharist’. The first goes back to Greek maza ‘barley cake’. The other derives ultimately from Latin mittere ‘to dismiss, send’, and so is connected with *message, missive [LME], and amass [LME], as well as with words such as *permit. The use for the religious service may come from its last words in Latin, Ite, missa est ‘Go, it is the dismissal’. Ordinary people have been called the masses since at least 1837, and they have been supplied with goods by mass production since 1893.