Mas·ter·y n.; pl. Masteries
  1. The position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority.
     If divided by mountains, they will fight for the mastery of the passages of the tops.   --Sir W. Raleigh.
  2. Superiority in war or competition; victory; triumph; preeminence.
     The voice of them that shout for mastery.   --Ex. xxxii. 18.
     Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.   --1 Cor. ix. 25.
  O, but to have gulled him
  Had been a mastery.   --B. Jonson.
  3. Contest for superiority. [Obs.]
  4. A masterly operation; a feat. [Obs.]
     I will do a maistrie ere I go.   --Chaucer.
  5. Specifically, the philosopher's stone. [Obs.]
  6. The act process of mastering; the state of having mastered.
     He could attain to a mastery in all languages.   --Tillotson.
     The learning and mastery of a tongue, being unpleasant in itself, should not be cumbered with other difficulties.   --Locke.
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