English
masscult
From mass + cult, coined by Dwight Macdonald in the essay Masscult and Midcult (1960).
Ancient Greek μᾶζα ‘barley-cake, lump of dough’
Latin massa ‘lump, dough’
Anglo-Norman masse
Middle English masse ‘lump, quantity of matter’
English mass
Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁- ‘to move, to turn (around), to revolve around,…’
…
Proto-Italic *kʷelō ‘to inhabit’
Latin colō ‘cultivate’
Latin cultus ‘care, adoration’
French culte
English cult
The story
From mass + cult, coined by Dwight Macdonald in the essay Masscult and Midcult (1960).
Today it means
noun The modern industrial equivalent of culture, mass-produced and anonymously consumed, without specialization or connoisseurship.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / masscult