MASTHEAD

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does masthead mean? 

• MASTHEAD (noun)
  The noun MASTHEAD has 3 senses:

1. a listing printed in all issues of a newspaper or magazine (usually on the editorial page) that gives the name of the publication and the names of the editorial staff, etc.

2. the title of a newspaper or magazine; usually printed on the front page and on the editorial page

3. the head or top of a mast

  Familiarity information: MASTHEAD used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MASTHEAD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A listing printed in all issues of a newspaper or magazine (usually on the editorial page) that gives the name of the publication and the names of the editorial staff, etc.

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

flag; masthead

Hypernyms ("masthead" is a kind of...):

list; listing (a database containing an ordered array of items (names or topics))

Sense 2

Meaning:

The title of a newspaper or magazine; usually printed on the front page and on the editorial page

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("masthead" is a kind of...):

title (the name of a work of art or literary composition etc.)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The head or top of a mast

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("masthead" is a kind of...):

top (the upper part of anything)

Holonyms ("masthead" is a part of...):

mast (a vertical spar for supporting sails)

 Context examples 

On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry that the boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

This was the proximate cause, I suppose, of my dreaming about him, for what appeared to me to be half the night; and dreaming, among other things, that he had launched Mr. Peggotty's house on a piratical expedition, with a black flag at the masthead, bearing the inscription Tidd's Practice, under which diabolical ensign he was carrying me and little Em'ly to the Spanish Main, to be drowned.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the very masthead.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It was Smoke’s unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The seas previously encountered were as ripples compared with these, which ran a half-mile from crest to crest and which upreared, I am confident, above our masthead.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run of the masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height while I swept the sea with glasses in search of the boats.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

One by one—I was at the masthead and saw—the six boats disappeared over the bulge of the earth as they followed the seal into the west. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)