Word: mask Part of Speech: verb Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French masque (“a covering to hide or protect the face”), from Italian maschera (“mask, disguise”), from (a byform of, see it for more) Medieval Latin masca, mascha, a borrowing of Proto-West Germanic *maskā, from which English mesh and mask (“mesh”) (below at Etymology 2) are inherited. Doublet of mascara, masque, and mesh. Replaced Old English grīma (“mask”), whence grime, and displaced non-native Middle English viser (“visor, mask”) borrowed from Old French viser, visier. Pronunciation: /mɑːsk/, /mask/, /mæsk/ 1. To cover (the face or something else), in order to conceal the identity or protect against injury; to cover with a mask or visor. Labels: transitive Example: They must all be masked and vizarded 2. To disguise as something else. Labels: transitive 3. To conceal from view or knowledge; to cover; to hide. Labels: transitive Example: Masking the business from the common eye Example: The opponent must not be able to recognize when we inhale and when we exhale. We achieve this by breathing with the diaphragm and we do not raise the shoulders while breathing. In particular we must mask when we are out of breath. 4. To conceal; also, to intervene in the line of. Labels: transitive 5. To cover or keep in check. Labels: transitive Example: to mask a body of troops or a fortess by a superior force, while some hostile evolution is being carried out 6. To take part as a masker in a masquerade. Labels: intransitive Example: Come Pentecost as quickly as it will, Some five and twenty years, and then we mask’d. Example: noble Gentilmen / who daunced & masked wt thes fayer ladyes & gentillwomen 7. To put on a mask; to wear a mask. Labels: intransitive Example: Dr. Shelita Dattani, director of professional affairs at the Canadian Pharmacists Association, says […]. “The efforts that we’re taking to reduce the spread of COVID are working … people are masking and distancing and staying away from each other and using hand hygiene, so I think all of these efforts combined are contributing to lower rates.” 8. To disguise oneself, to be disguised in any way. Labels: intransitive, obsolete Example: Ioue sometime maſked in a ſhepheards weede, And by thoſe ſteps that he hath ſcal’d the heauens, May we become immortall like the Gods. 9. To conceal or disguise one's neurodivergence, especially autism; to learn, practice, and perform certain behaviors and suppress others in order to appear more neurotypical. Labels: intransitive Example: Masking is exhausting and some autistics require copious amounts of time afterwards to recover from hiding who they are and pretending to be someone they aren't. Even when autistics mask they don't always pass fully as an NT person. Example: Masking can leave a person with less energy to handle other aspects of their day, from performing basic housework to processing thoughts and feelings. 10. To cover or shield something, or a portion of something, so as to prevent reproduction or to safeguard the surface from the colors used when working with an air brush or painting. Labels: transitive 11. To set or unset (certain bits, or binary digits, within a value) by means of a bitmask. Labels: transitive Example: That is, the lower nibble (the 4 bits 1010 = A) has been masked to zero. This is because ANDing anything with a zero produces a zero, while ANDing any bit with a 1 leaves the bit unchanged[…] 12. To disable (an interrupt, etc.) by setting or unsetting the associated bit. Labels: transitive Example: Some hardware interrupts can be masked, or disabled; that is, the CPU is told to ignore them.