Language Matters | As Hong Kong bans protesters from wearing masks, we uncover the origins of the word

In spite of the ban, in Hong Kong the mask continues to act as a covering, a guard, part of the costume in a dance of defiance with a looming spectre.

But what is a mask? The English word is an anglicisation that occurred around 1530 of the Middle French masque, meaning a covering to hide or guard the face, coming from the Italian maschera, deriving from the Medieval Latin masca (“mask”, “spectre”, “nightmare”).

The English adoption was the result of a new form of entertainment involving masked performers acting, singing and dancing. Having developed in Italy, the festive frivolity flourished in 16th and early-17th century Europe. The figurative meaning for a face covering used for disguise or concealment came into use in the 1570s.

The word’s origins preceding the Medieval Latin masca are shrouded in uncertainty but are thought to have resulted from the merger of two or more sources.

One source could lie in a Germanic word that comes from the Old Frankish maska, maskra meaning “mask”, “mesh”, from the Proto-Germanic maskwo for “mesh”, “netting”, “mask”, which is ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European mezg “to knit”, “twist”. The Proto-Germanic form also evolved to become the Old English max, masc “net”, “mesh” “netting”, and mæscre “mesh”, “discolouration”, “spot”, which became the Middle English maske “mesh”. These etymologies illus­trate the practice of wearing mesh netting over the face to filter air, keeping soot and dust particles from entering the lungs, as with surgical and gas masks.

Another possible source lies in the Old French mascurer, “to blacken the face”; similar forms and meaning are found in the Occitan and Catalan mascara. The stem mask-, of pre-Indo-European origin, meaning “black”, also gave rise to words such as the Old Occitan masco “witch”, and the French masque “brothel-keeper”, “witch”. Elizabethan poet and playwright Ben Jonson famously invented the antimasque in theatre, which tended to involve demonic creatures and personified sins – underscoring this “black”-meaning sense of the word. Ancient forms of such carnival­esque pagan rituals, which still survive in Europe and America, often involve performers with black-painted faces wreaking licensed havoc on religious feast days.

Finally, the Arabic maskharah “buffoon”, “mockery”, from the verb root sakhira “to ridicule”, has been proposed as a possible source. Such a character from traditional folk theatre – both Arabic jester and European fool – is not only usually characterised by satirical licence and defiance of authority, but also often embodies a relationship with magic and death.