massif

Borrowed from French massif, from Middle French massif, from Latin massa, from Ancient Greek μᾶζα (mâza, “barley-cake, lump (of dough)”).

• IPA^(key): /mæˈsiːf/
• Rhymes: -iːf

massif (plural massifs)

1. A principal mountain mass.
2. A block of the earth's crust bounded by faults or flexures and displaced as a unit without internal change; normally consists of gneisses and schists
   • 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead:

     The southern borders of these states are keyed to the same horizontal projection, one surveyed by the frontier planter William Byrd in 1728, while the rivers forming their northern extents fall back just opposite each other from the flanks of the Appalachian massif.

masse (“mass”) +‎ -if

• IPA^(key): /ma.sif/

• audio

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massif m (plural massifs)

1. massif

massif (feminine singular massive, masculine plural massifs, feminine plural massives)

1. massive

• “massif” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• massiff, massiffe, massyf

From Middle French massif; equivalent to mass +‎ -if.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmasif/

massif

1. (Late Middle English) weighty, massy, weighing very much.
2. (Late Middle English, rare) massive, huge, enormous.
3. (Late Middle English, rare) not sharp, unsharpened, coarse.

• massy

• English: massive
• Scots: massive (obsolete)

• “massī̆f (adj.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-27.