Italian for 'master,' from Latin 'magister' — English borrowed the same root three times: 'master,' 'mister,' 'maestro.'
A distinguished conductor or performer of classical music; a master of any art.
From Italian 'maestro' (master, teacher, especially a master of music or art), from Latin 'magister' (master, chief, director, teacher), built on the root 'mag-' meaning great, with the comparative suffix -ister. Latin 'magister' stands beside 'minister' (servant, one who is less — using 'minus', lesser) — the pair reflecting a social scale of greater and lesser. The Latin root 'mag-' derives from PIE *meg- (great, large), one of the most widespread Indo-European roots: Greek 'megas' (great), Sanskrit 'maha' (great, as in 'Mahabharata'), Old English
English has borrowed the same Latin word 'magister' three separate times through three different routes: as 'master' (via Old French 'maistre' in the twelfth century), as 'mister' (a weakened form of 'master'), and as 'maestro' (via Italian in the eighteenth century). All three are the same word at different stages of linguistic evolution, each carrying a different shade of authority.
Words closest in meaning, ranked by similarity