Massage
//ˈmæsɑː(d)ʒ// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The action of rubbing, kneading or hitting someone's body, to help the person relax, prepare for muscular action (as in contact sports) or to relieve aches. countable, uncountable
"Having a massage can have many beneficial effects."
- 2 kneading and rubbing parts of the body to increase circulation and promote relaxation wordnet
- 3 The action of rubbing or kneading anything. countable, uncountable
"The baker gave the dough one final massage."
Verb
- 1 To rub and knead (someone's body or a part of a body), to perform a massage on (somebody). transitive
"My neck doesn't hurt as much as it did last night since my wife massaged me after I got back from the concert."
- 2 give a massage to wordnet
- 3 To rub or knead anything. transitive
"Massage the kale to soften it before making the salad."
- 4 manually manipulate (someone's body), usually for medicinal or relaxation purposes wordnet
- 5 To manipulate (data, a document etc.) to make it more presentable or more convenient to work with. transitive
"News relating to public disturbances was systematically massaged [...]."
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- 6 To falsify (data or accounts). transitive
Example
More examples"I want a massage. I need to relax."
Etymology
From French massage (noun), from masser (“to massage”) (borrowed around the end of the 18th century from Arabic مَسَّ (massa, “feel, touch”), or from Portuguese amassar) + -age. Cognate to German massieren.
Related phrases
More for "massage"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.